Name: Rachel Sato

Year: Junior

Major: Psychology

Minor: Business Institutions

CFS Class: Field Studies in Civic Engagement

Employer: Civic Consulting Alliance

I am working at the Civic Consulting Alliance (CCA) and I have had a really great experience so far. The entire organization is really focused on giving interns and fellows a great experience by providing networking opportunities and an open environment where you can meet everyone. I have been able to sit and talk with lots of people at different levels of the organization and am regularly in meetings with the management executives which is a very unique opportunity. My project is not typical consulting work for CCA but they just happened to need a lot of extra staff on this project at the time I joined. I am creating a transition document for a civic leader. So at first I spent most of my days researching and recording sources and key takeaways, but as my team has transitioned into outlining and writing the actual narrative I have been given sections to outline and then write. I spend about 7 hours every day just sitting and working on my computer but that is broken up by team and management meetings. I have pretty tight deadlines usually, especially now that we are actually writing, so I am pretty consistently busy until I leave work. I really like that I have substantive work and am part of the team, I am able to do the same work as first year analysts just with a little extra guidance, which is pretty exceptional and a great thing to talk about in other job interviews. I am pretty outgoing so it was easy to fit into the office culture and talk to everyone around the office but it was definitely tough to be the youngest at first and also new, but there are a lot of other fellows from corporate companies so there are always new faces. I never felt like the solo newbie. This internship has given me a lot of exposure to the benefits of working in a corporate job for the resources and options it provides you, despite the fact that CCA itself is a non-profit. A lot of the management and senior associates are from large consulting firms like McKinsey, but also have experience in the public and non-profit sector. It is a really cool collaboration between public and private and has pushed me towards starting my career in a corporate industry.