Name: Sunny

Year: Senior

Major: Psychology, Spanish

CFS Program: Field Studies in Civic Engagement

My CFS internship this winter quarter has been invaluable to my Northwestern and work experience. The internship, supplemented by the CFS class, was a great way to end my time at Northwestern and transition into the “real world.” My internship this quarter has been with the Human Resources Department at the American Bar Association, which is a voluntary membership organization for lawyers and law students.

As an intern in the HR department, I was able to complete a variety of projects, such as revamping the New Hire Orientation and developing an official internship program. My one major project that spanned the whole quarter was revamping the New Hire Orientation. The department felt that a change was necessary because the orientation process had gotten out-of-date, and there was a great potential to make it more efficient and engaging. The goal was to launch an online version of the orientation with a condensed supplementary in-person component. They wanted me to be a fresh and reliable perspective to orient that change, so I observed the ABA’s orientation and conducted research on the best practices for orientation and onboarding. With this foundation, I revised the New Hire protocol and all of the related materials –the PowerPoint presentation, welcome manuals and all other documents that will soon go on the new webpage for new employees. I edited the existing Supervisors Guide to make it more concise and comprehensible in order to ensure that supervisors would facilitate the onboarding process beyond the orientation led by HR. I have also been aiding in the development of a streamlined internship program with a more organized and official process for requesting, recruiting and onboarding interns. In my last few days in the office, I will be helping the department organize the webpages for the interns and the materials that will go on that site.

However, I can’t stress enough how much this internship went beyond the tasks and accomplishments at the ABA. Through this internship, I learned about general conduct and communication in a professional setting. I gained insight into the functions of the ABA’s HR department and the ABA as a whole. I gained exposure to the different roles that an HR department would play in an organization and learned about the various aspects of HR that I didn’t know about previously by shadowing different members of the department.

Even outside of the office, I constantly had new learning opportunities. The CFS class allowed me to see my internship (as well as my Northwestern experience and even my life as a whole) in the larger context of civic engagement. The L rides downtown helped me get the hang of a commuting lifestyle and learn to navigate the trickiness that can come with the commute. I was also able to explore the bustling areas of downtown Chicago that surrounded the office, which I may have never done otherwise.

I am grateful for this experience through Chicago Field Studies because it gave me incredible learning opportunities in order to help me move forward from the academic undergraduate world into the professional world.