Week Three: Donors, Data, and Jane Eyre

Though the first half of this week was marred by an unfortunate episode of violent illness (courtesy of my food allergies), the second half of the week more than made up for it!

At the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), I got to help with all kinds of projects and was even assigned a few of my own. On Thursday, I helped with research and gathering data for articles being written by other members of the team. I helped categorize and sort through ACTA’s curriculum scoring of each of the March Madness schools to help with a fun article being posted in honor of the start of the games. Then, I helped gather information on young peoples’ political opinions and historical knowledge for an article being written by a different team member. It was, in a word, depressing. Reading that only 8% of high school seniors can identify slavery as the cause of the Civil War was among the most sobering stats I’ve read in my life. But, at the same time, collecting the data was wildly fun. Diving deep into a specific topic, especially one I have a pre-existing interest in, is one of my favorite things. Overall, collecting the data was fun and heartbreaking in equal measure.

Then, on Friday, I got assigned to write a few articles of my own! ACTA’s Fund for Academic Renewal department reached out and asked that I write an article that offered the high school perspective on the college search in order to help university donors funnel their money towards what actually draws students in. Next week will definitely be focused on drafting both this article and my existing one in defense of literature’s necessity to society. I’ve said it before, but it remains just as true: I couldn’t imagine a better possible internship. I get to research, write, read, and champion a cause that’s always been important to me.

On the research project side of things, I unfortunately wasn’t quite as productive as planned due to the aforementioned illness. I did, however, manage to get through a second pass at The Professor, to better standardize my notetaking practices. And on Friday, I got to start Jane Eyre once more. The ten-year-old in me who fell in love with Jane Eyre and took to reading in curtained windowsills for years after reading the first scene was hungry to tear through the book in one sitting, but I had to reign myself in. An interesting part of the project has been forcing myself into the slower, more methodical pace necessary for a project of this kind. It’s an odd experience to have your favorite thing in the world become a systematic, organized task. The obsessive reader in me gets swallowed up in the splendor and the horror of Bronte’s novels, and it takes a conscious restraint not to devour them at the speed of light. It’s certainly great practice for college and a potential academic career, where I’ll have to balance the kid-in-a-candy-store approach with measured, methodical thinking.

In all, anaphylaxis aside, this was a splendid and productive week! I can’t wait to get started on my new articles and spend next week buried in Jane Eyre once more.