The Speed of the Working World

One of the first major things that I have noticed through my internship and the people I am working with is that they like to move...fast. Many people can attest to the fact that "government work is slow" and sometimes that translates into public universities as well. In my experience dealing with ASU, it is not necessarily the quickest moving situation I have been in. Going into my internship, I didn't necessarily believe that things would move slow, but I definitely did not consider that things would be moving as fast as they are.

Many days there are dozens of emails/calls/texts/etc. exchanged in an effort to keep moving forward. While this definitely makes sense, sometimes it has become difficult to keep up with the speed of everything while also attending to my classes and other club responsibilities on campus. I recognized that the reason many of the things going on in the CEMHS are happening so quickly is because many of the people involved come from the public sector, where business moves fast. Many of them have interacted with governments and/or universities in the past, but they operate the CEMHS as a business, in the sense that communication and daily activities are rapidly moving. This has presented a challenge to me to stay on top of things and be involved after a day away where I may not get a chance to sit down at the computer and read emails until 10pm after most of the dialogue has concluded for the day. As difficult as that is to adjust to, I enjoy the speed of everything because it is presenting a challenge and really giving me an opportunity to participate in a wide range of activities.