Reflection of my start at Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance

Starting in February this year I started my internship at the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance in partnership with the Maryland Governor’s Summer Internship Program (GSIP). I originally was supposed to take part in this internship in summer of 2020, but COVID-19 brought that to a halt and I am fortunate to be taking part in it now. Throughout this first update at my internship I hope to share the following: Why did I choose to apply to the program? What does Public Service mean to me? Where am I interning? What was I nervous about? Finally, describe the beginning of my internship.

I'm a current junior at Hood College where I am majoring in Mathematics with double minors in Actuarial Science and Economics. By the sound of that you may think that I have what I want to do with my life all figured out, I don't. The reason I applied to GSIP was because I was a sophomore who was confused about what I wanted to do with my life. The one thing I do know is that the work that I do must have a sense of purpose in it. I want what I do with my life to provide me fulfillment and that I know the work that I am doing is genuinely helping people. The application for GSIP stood out to me because it presented a roadmap to my future successes.

To me, public service is giving back to the communities that have given so much to me. Whether that is quietly doing something behind the scenes or being loud and in-charge. It is about who you are trying to help and how you are going to help them. No one is successful without the people who help them get there. Giving back to those who were there when you needed help reaching your goals are also people who need help too. It is not about the money, it is not about the acknowledgement, it is about the life-altering or even small-scale changes that makes someone else's life easier that make public service worth it.

This semester I am virtually interning at the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance at the Jacob France Institute, or better known as BNIA. The work that BNIA has provided to the community is a gift that keeps on giving. BNIA's goal is to strengthen Baltimore's neighborhoods by providing meaningful, accurate, and open data at the community level. To break this down further, BNIA provides completely free statistics of different indicators (positive and negative) to interpret all of Baltimore's crises. You may be wondering how this is even related to service. These statistics are directly related to service because they help a multitude of organizations, non-profits, businesses, and companies to help fight against different issues within Baltimore. For example, we have the statistics of high school graduation rates all across Baltimore and this information can be used to combat the areas with the lowest graduation rates. BNIA provides important statistical information for free.

Going into this semester knowing that this internship was going to be completely virtual was nerve-racking. It is so easy to get distracted while you are sitting at home during your allotted interning hours. Sometimes the only thing I can think about is all of the homework that needs to get done, but I can't do it at that very moment because I dedicated that time to my internship. I'm starting to get used to it though. To fight the urge to worry about homework I plan out parts of my day to do certain assignments every week.

So far I have worked with my advisors on how to get BNIA's learning modules out to our communities. I am also working on each learning module to use parts of their interactive website rather than relying on excel data sheets to drive more traffic to their website. It is still early so I am still tackling ideas on how to get this information out into communities, but it is an interesting task to take on. Ultimately this experience has been so eye-opening for me. The work that I have been doing so far with BNIA has guided me to learn more about careers I can do that help people and use statistics combined together.