Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

My Huge Secret Project

At the end of my internship at JVS, I secretly finished a huge project: writing six thank-you letters to my supervisors and colleagues by hand.

The biggest chunk of the work is composing the contents of each letter. For each person that I wrote for, I tried to think of at least one unique shared memory to write about. As I was brainstorming, I reminded myself of many little things that happened during this summer: the numerous emails I exchanged with HR, the first time my colleague introduced me to the department, the little mistakes I have made at work, and finally, the smiles and encouragement from my supervisors. I couldn’t believe that I have never thought about those little things when I came home every day exhausted. By composing these thank-you letters, I actually realized that my internship was not only comprised of tedious hard work; those little bitterness and sweetness added more flavors to my routines.

While composing the letters, I also wanted to share with my supervisors and colleagues what I gained from my internship. First of all, as I worked for three different programs under two different departments, I get to learn the ins and outs of JVS – how JVS receives donations and how it provides services to its clients and the public. During my daily work at the different departments, I also acquired many useful skills such as processing huge amount of data using excel and different databases. However, the most valuable thing I gained is a good working habit – always keep an eye on the details, always think about the outcomes and impacts of a project before blindly finishing it, and never give up finding ways to solve problems. As I wrote down these learnings, I realized that I have accomplished a lot during this internship, and I grew up so quickly.

As these letters gave me a chance to reflect myself, they also brought me many surprises. Since I was leaving the CareerSolution Department on this Tuesday and had two more days at the Development Department, I left the letters for my two supervisors in CareerSolution Department after they went home. The next day, the supervisors were so impressed that they had an intern appreciation for me – a very relaxed coffee chat. At the last day of my internship, I also received two thank-you cards: one was from my supervisors in the CareerSolution Department, another was from everyone in the Development Department. After I gave out all my thank-you letters before I left the office on Thursday, I was able to connect to many of my supervisors and colleagues on LinkedIn. Now I feel like this internship is not fading away; its root is growing deeper and deeper, and I am so fortunate to meet and work with these awesome people during this summer.

There’s nothing that can better end this internship than this huge project of expressing gratitude.