KEY POINTS learned:
- Plan A, B, C, D…
- Consent
- Sense of community
KEY POINTS Professional Development:
- Systems Thinking
- Understanding different cultures → effective work strategies/communications
- Decision making
KEY POINTS Personal Development:
- Resilience
- Autonomy
- Authority
SUMMARY (in order of learned, professional, personal):
I learned a lot about our project concept as a whole on our trip to Sierra Leone. I learned how much of a serious conversation things like manufacturing in a reliable workspace, pudding storage and preservation, distribution channels and marketing components, and everything surrounding the pharmacy board, shelf life testing, and the therapy food debate truly are. There is way more to consider now that we have seen the country and its functions first-hand. During fieldwork, I learned it is imperative to have a backup plan for your backup plan’s backup plan… In-country, things never seem to go the way you want, nevertheless, the way you expect either. This meant we quickly would have to make a new plan on the spot and be ready to pivot with a fresh idea when needed to still have a productive day and accomplish what we needed to. Another big takeaway was regarding the importance of consent during interviews. When we wanted to approach mothers and families to conduct our taste-testing and surveys, it was crucial that we started off with a consent reading. And even more so than that, we had to be sure our message and the question of their participation were getting across correctly. The language barrier definitely made this difficult, and some translators would reverberate our message differently than others, so we had to constantly be checking to make sure the consent was given properly and the mother was consciously making her choice. If not, sometimes we would run into problems where mothers seemed uncomfortable but would just go along with it because they didn’t know there was an option to partake or not. One time a mother said no because she believed we were going to poison her! To each their own… at least that proved she was getting asked for consent correctly, and she chose to say no! Lastly, my favorite part was simply learning about all of these(GSIF) people. Khanjan put 30 students in a room and forced us to begrudgingly participate, engage, and present with one another on our projects. Many would probably agree a silent haze of competition was always in the room, but after going on this trip, these people are more friends, colleagues, and a handful of role models I never knew before. It was really comforting to meet everyone and realize they’re (mostly) not scary at all! And even starting my Junior year, I have new faces I look out for with a smile in all my classes.
When reflecting on my professional developments, I think one of the biggest was understanding the usefulness of systems thinking and applying it. I am generally a pretty strategic-minded person, but when our team hit hiccups in the first few days of fieldwork, I could not come up with a way around it. Khanjan helped us introduce a new way to delegate roles amongst our team, and learning to think of the components to the project in a more systematic way like this made it much easier to juggle all of our roles without stepping on each other’s toes. Another big one was understanding cross-cultural differences in the workplace. This extending as far as different mindsets, communication strategies, traditional or generational considerations, and certainly the language barrier. It was interesting to see how certain word choice we perceived to be common sense and easily understood on our survey turned out to be complicated or just not colloquial. We had to do a lot of regrouping to make sure we were communicating the best way possible, and this pertains to meetings, scheduling, and tasking assignments with locals as well. If we wanted something done, we needed to make sure it was clear and concise and a blanket, “This needs to be done.” If we tried too hard to be what we deem polite or respectful, our messages would get lost. Finally, decision making was another large factor I have improved on. Since, as mentioned before, things do not always go according to plan, if we need to keep moving it is important to just make a call. There isn’t enough time to delay and ponder, we had to move along, despite any changes throwing us off.
Personally, the three things I improved the most over this summer were my resilience, autonomy, and authority(self-advocacy). With my other internship having me a quick extra lap around the globe before this, I was very impressed with my resilience and determination the last few weeks. My body was put through a lot but I was able to accomplish so much every day, even when I thought I had reached my limit or couldn’t bear another bean. With so many hectic events, I was able to hone in on what was important and what needed to be done; I could take things as they come, live with it, and make the best out of situations. Moreover, my independence definitely was tested and grew. In Sierra Leone it very well could have been easy to brush issues along, let them build up, and accomplish very little. But, I worked to make things happen—we all did. If we hadn’t, nothing would have been achieved. The experience was entirely what we make of it, and I like to think I made the most I could have. Finally, reflecting on the power of this opportunity, I recognized how much self-advocacy I had to do TO get things done. I quickly realized that if we wanted something, we had to spearhead goals and turn them into accomplishments.