Name: Darya Daneshmand
Year: Junior
Major: Neuroscience, Journalism
Minor: Segal Design Certificate
CFS Class: Field Studies in the Modern Workplace
Employer: Treatment Magazine

When I began my CFS internship at Treatment Magazine, I was excited to be given the freedom to contribute in several different realms with a small and highly collaborative group of people. Working with the team while examining workplace culture in my CFS course provided me with greater insight into what kinds of spaces best suit my personality and work style, and Treatment Magazine was a great fit.

I was told at the outset of my internship that I could contribute to any aspect of the publication’s work as long as the work I contributed was quality. Writing weekly newsletters for industry professionals and clinicians, gaining experience with data visualization through analysis of published neuroscience research, and designing illustrations for social media posts constituted the majority of my work. This internship was the first that matched my desire to complete different types of work within the same industry, but taught me that doing so required me to meet the freedom I was given with even stronger communication, given the amount of collaboration this required.

I learned a good deal about how my strengths related to my weaknesses, and subsequently identified new strategies to help me succeed. For instance, my eagerness to work on several projects simultaneously required me to consider the way I approached my commitments. Particularly because I was doing additional work outside of my internship, I became better at under-promising and over-delivering, and discovered that the best way to go about presenting ideas in many cases is to simply start working on them, since a concrete display of what you’d like to achieve typically conveys much more.

My initial struggles with finding individuals and organizations within my industry for specific pieces began to wane as I became better at updating my team and conveying what I was struggling with. They were always more than happy to provide guidance, as long as reached out to ask for it.