At the very beginning of my internship back in September, Sarah shared with me old paper files and all the electronic files she could find. Nana sent me old electronic files, as well. My first task was to enter the existing data from Sarah and Nana into the Google Sheet. I set aside 45 minutes, four days a week, to enter data. This took me through December.
In January, the task shifted to collecting unknown data from the past interns themselves. We created a list of survey questions, but contact information was typically out of date. I spent hours trying to track down interns through social media, White Pages, Pinhead blogs, phone calls, and texts. Sometimes I would reach past interns, but they would be slow to respond. I learned patience and how to strategically follow up to get answers to the survey. Over the next many months, I spent four hours a week trying to collect and organize more than 4,000 data points.
With the help of current and past directors — Sarah Holbrooke, Nana Naisbitt, Sonchia Jilek, and Ramona Gaylord — 99 past interns responded to the survey, which was emailed in stages throughout the winter and spring. With a total of 234 past interns from 2004 to 2020, the response rate was an impressive 42%. Every week, I continued to enter data as it arrived.
By early June, I had to accept that I was not going to get any more responses, and I needed to begin analysing the data. I am
Next week, I will post the full report of what we learned. We were stunned by what we learned!
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