Name: Rachel Gass
Class Year: 2023
Major: Environmental Studies
Hometown: Deerfield, Ill.
Internship Organization: Fishadelphia
Job Title: Summer Intern
Location: Philadelphia, Pa.
Award: Green Grant
Why did you apply for this internship?
After taking Dr. Young’s Fish and Community course last semester, I sought to continue working for Dr. Young and Fishadelphia. Fishadelphia’s mission of building community and food access channels between regional fish harvesters and diverse consumers in Philadelphia strongly aligns with my interest in food sovereignty. In addition to pursuing my main academic interest, interning for Fishadelphia enables me to build my relationship with a mentor of mine, work alongside an incredible team, connect with Philadelphia, and eat delicious fish.
What’s happening at your internship?
To support Fishadelphia’s massive data analysis project, I am entering how each customer heard about Fishadelphia and removing redundancies in the master spreadsheet. It has been interesting learning about all of the different ways that people can hear about an organization, and I have gained some handy spreadsheet skills in the process.
Now that farmers’ market season is starting, I’ll be staffing the four markets that Fishadelphia attends: Mifflin Square, FDR Park, Life Do Grow, and Bethel AME. There, I will pilot the education programming that Fish and Community class developed, administer surveys to gather more data, meet customers, and work alongside the amazing Fishadelphia team.
Was there anything special about how you found this internship?
My original internship with an urban garden in Philadelphia fell through due organizational difficulties, so I had to quickly come up with another plan. With the support of mentors of mine in the ENVS faculty, I emailed Dr. Young about working for Fishadelphia. She was thrilled to hear that I was available to work for her over the summer, and within a week we established my new internship. I am grateful to all of my professors who assisted me throughout the process. This unexpected experience taught me the importance of building strong relationships with professors whose classes you take and the support that academic advisors can provide. While this wasn’t the internship that I initially planned to be doing this summer, I am so glad to be doing it now.
What has working remotely for the first time been like for you?
Remote work has unique benefits and drawbacks that have influenced my internship experience in unique ways. Remote work offers a whole lot more flexibility than a traditional work experience. Since my work is project-based, I’ve been able to plan my work around travel and time with friends rather than the other way around. It’s nice having the flexibility to make my own schedule according to my own preferences (within reasonable bounds of course—some days, like farmers’ market days, I have to work, and that’s just fine!). As a result, I’ve been able to travel and spend a lot of time with friends this summer.
On the other hand, though, I miss the discipline and diversity that comes with in-person work. Without a dedicated daily start and end time, it can be hard to convince myself to wake up at 8:30 a.m. and go to bed at 11 p.m., for example. I’m also a lot more likely to spend a lot of my day in my apartment since my work and life space can be the same. I miss the diversity of location and people to interact with that in-person work brings. I’ve found that working in public places, such as libraries and cafes, partially remedies this gap.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.