Thank You - CEMHS

Everyone at CEMHS;

Thank you all so much for allowing me the opportunity to intern with you this semester at the Center for Emergency Management and Homeland Security at ASU. The amount of knowledge you have, and your willingness to share it with me and guide me on my journey is much appreciated. I am so thankful for your willingness to get me involved with as much as you could and help provide me as many tools and resources as you could for me to be successful. In addition to your knowledge within the field, I also thank you for the life lessons that you have helped to provide in such a short period of time. I do not think my words can convey my sincerest gratitude for all of the knowledge and information you have passed on to me, but I thank you all so much.

Devinn

Reflection on Goals

Looking back at my first blog post, I had three goals:
1. Begin to understand the life of a professional
2. Network within my field
3. Gain a better understanding of Emergency Management and Homeland Security

I think I would have to say that I met every goal I set out to achieve through my internship this semester. I had the opportunity to sit in on meetings and work on projects in a professional environment that really helped me understand what it means to join the “working world”. Sitting in on the various meetings and working on various projects throughout the semester, I had the opportunity to meet and connect with various people of different groups and backgrounds and got to experience how they fit into the EM/HS structure. Overall, I got to more fully explore the EM/HS field and apply my coursework (both past and current) to my internship, and vice versa. Being able to make the connections between the classroom and the professional world was extremely beneficial and really help me correlate and organize my thoughts.

I learned what it meant to join the professional world and began to get a better understanding of how this operates vs the classroom environment. While there are many similarities between the two, it is definitely very different and being able to compare and contrast them and have separate mindsets for each environment was something I focused on this semester.

Career Services is not just for careers

Previously, I wrote a blog articles which detailed where I was at in my life, and how I did not exactly know where I was going in the future with regards to beginning a career or continuing to move forward with my education. Over these past few months, the idea of grad school has been growing on me more and more and continued to become something that was not just an idea, but a legitimate option. I met with a few people I know currently working in higher education at ASU, and I spoke with them to get a better idea of why they chose that as their career path. Many of them did not enter higher education with that being their goal as an undergrad so I wanted to see what drew them to that position. These conversations really had an impact with me, and at this point, I am fairly sure that is the path I will be taking. However, with this in mind, I set up an appointment with career services. There, I voiced many of my same thoughts and ideas, and I was introduced to something that I was unaware of - career services offers services to help with grad school. These services such as the ability to review personal statements, and even provide free or reduced GRE and other grad test prep courses. I was completely unaware that these services were offered, and I found out that career services isn't just available to help you find your career, but they are also there to help you down whatever path you choose to pursue, even if that is grad school.

Working in Teams

One of the most profound experiences of this internship has been the ability to work in teams and groups. Going through school and college, I absolutely hated group work. Having to rely on others to do their fair share (which often didn't happen), arrange meeting times, and oftentimes create/present a presentation always created more headaches than it seemed to be worth. However, throughout my internship, I have had the chance to work with others on quite a few different projects and this has completely changed my outlook on this type of work. I have found that everyone is taking the projects seriously and actually feels some sort of investment in the project at hand. Suddenly, everyone is doing their share of work and it is actually hard for me to keep up at times. I am a person that very much relies on human interaction and talking with people, but group project environment were absolutely awful. But now, after working with others who are committed to a cause and truly get excited about what they are doing because it means something to them, and isn't just a grade, has given me a lot more appreciation and excitement for working in groups and teams in the future. I just hope moving forward with whatever path I choose that I continue to work with people who are doing the job because it means more to them than just a paycheck. Only time will tell.

Sex/Human Trafficking

One of the areas I have had some experience with in my research for the CEMHS is sex/human trafficking. In addition, I have had the opportunity to use this as a foundation for my PAF 400 capstone project. Going into this semester, I had very little experience with this topic, and to be quite frank, the knowledge of how "real" of a problem this is.

Through my research this semester, I have found that there is actually very little research on this subject, and many people fail to see this as a real problem in their communities. This is a problem. Initially, I wanted to look at more in-depth issues like "who" was involved, both victims and the traffickers. Unfortunately, there just is not much research because there is a problem with our perception and awareness of human trafficking as a society.

When it comes to awareness of human trafficking, we often equate this with the dramatic movie scenes depicting excessively slave-like conditions. However, this is not normally the case. In addition, we often consider sex trafficking to be a bigger and more egregious problem than human trafficking. While sex trafficking is a form of human trafficking, it often leads us to only think of that as a problem, and neglect the other, often more abundant, cases. For instance, forced labor is a very real problem; however, we will often overlook this as an issue because the labor itself may not be illegal, even though the people working in those legal conditions may be working against their own will.

Another aspect I looked into regarding this issue is the resources that are available for those that are victims or may see the signs of a victim in their communities. Comparatively, to other more well-known problems, there are not many. This is also a result of a lack of awareness. If there is not a greater awareness to the issue, then people will be slow to provide resources. As awareness increases, then resources increase, which will also continue to increase awareness. An increase in one leads to an increase in another, but a decrease in one idea can also lead to a decrease in another.

Most of us are unaware that sex/human trafficking can occur right here in the United States, in our own cities and our own communities. We often think of this is an issue that occurs in third-world countries, but that is definitely not the case. There needs to be an increase in the awareness of human trafficking and a willingness to admit that it could be happening right in front of our own eyes. Until this happens, there will continue to be a lack of resources and overall inability to address this issue on a greater scale.

Strengths of CEMHS

Working with the CEMHS for the semester has really given me the opportunity to see how a successful organization, specifically a research center, is run. One of the things I have noticed to be very beneficial is how the responsibilities are delegated. For instance, we have many different projects going on at a time, and while everyone is informed of the overall happenings in each project, the specifics of each project are being handled somewhat independently. This allows everyone to focus on their projects, and keeping everything moving forward without being too overwhelmed.

Another strength is communication. There is a constant flow of emails going around that keep everyone informed of everything going on and where we are at in each process. This allows people to focus on the goals, and also allows people to be aware of a networking connection they may be able to make if there is an opportunity to bring multiple projects together.

If I was in charge of an organization like this, I am not sure that there is much I would do differently. Obviously those in charge have many more years experience managing people than I do, and I think that they have found the most effective way to do this. It can be tough for them to constantly push others to move on projects and be proactive when they can, and do it in a very motivating way, which is something that has been accomplished. Everyone involved is invested, and that goes a long way to ensuring that everything is getting done.

Fork Ahead?

One of my biggest struggles through my college career has been finding a major that I enjoy, and also makes me feel like I am accomplishing something that is fulfilling for me. As I have mentioned in a pervious blog post, I have changed my major 6 times, but only once while at ASU. While working in my internship, I was hoping that this would provide me with an overwhelming sense of "THIS IS WHAT I WAS MEANT TO DO FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!" but that hasn't quite occurred as planned.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the work that I am doing, but I have found myself thinking a lot about the "next steps". For instance, do I want to pursue a career within EM or HS...or both...or neither? While there are lots of similarities between the two fields and a lot of overlap, there are some distinct differences. I was hoping that my final semester, internship included, would provide a lot more clarity for me than it has thus far. I think I can admit that I am just unsure what the future has for me and this feeling is just because I do not know where I will be or what I will be doing in ten, or even five, years from now. I can see myself working in this field and making a difference, but I am also worried about actually enjoying the career that I will have and what I will be doing. As a result, I have been contemplating more and more the idea of grad school.

Those who know me know that I am decently well involved at ASU, especially within housing and working with the freshman students. I had the opportunity to serve as a Community Assistant (synonymous with Resident Assistant) for two years on the Downtown Phoenix Campus and I also teach a freshman ASU 101 class for the College of Public Service. More and more, I continue to find myself considering the idea of working full-time with students and the idea of empowering and enabling them to succeed in life. Ultimately, I do not know where I will be or what I will be doing in the coming months, and I can see two very advantageous paths to take in life, but I also see a fork approaching in the road where I may have to make a decision that I hope is the right one for me.