 I joined the internship search group because I really wanted an accountability mechanism built into my internship search process. My biggest problem in life is accountability. I knew that if I did not have a formal structure to keep me in check, I would not really get the internship work done. I mean, the main driver for participating in the internship group was accountability. With all the different classes and activities going on, it's very easy to sort of put off something that seems so far away until much later. At the end of every meeting, we would sort of outline our goals for the next week and then at, you know, a next week's meeting, we would go around the room and just see how we made progress on those goals. I also gained something that I sort of didn't expect, just sort of a sense of camaraderie and just a lightness to the internship search. It was great to be with a group of fellow 40s sort of just bonding over the internship search experience. You know, we met early Wednesday mornings and it was just a nice relief to just be able to laugh about some of the experiences that we were going through and the different stresses that we were experiencing. Working with my classmates through this process was a huge benefit. It was helpful to just hear what people were experiencing and be able to say, hey, I'm experiencing that too. It's an opportunity to learn more about what my fellow classmates are interested in and why. Why are they in policy school? Why are they at board? You know, to create a deeper connection beyond, you know, everyday class. Working with my peers was a special experience and it's something I didn't expect to come out of the search group and I think actually spending this time really reinforces the idea that everyone's on a different path, everyone's in a different place and it makes you feel, I think, more confident in your own uniqueness. So at the top of each search group, we would spend a moment doing a centering practice that was led by Jennifer. We would take a moment, we would focus ourselves so that we were, we got rid of the clutter, which there is again much clutter in grad school and focused on the task in front of us and focused on who we are and what we're bringing to the plate as a moment to just find my breath, find myself and then focus on the thing that I'm doing in that moment. This process really actually helped with time management in my opinion. It was an hour a week. It made sure that we had goals achieved in a certain time frame. We knew that it was happening at the same time every week. It really helped you figure out how do I schedule this? Into my time and also how do I make sure I get the things done before hands that need to be done? You know, one of the skills that is highlighted in the internship group is setting aside protected time to devote to internship searching. So I would block off, you know, midday on Fridays to just devote to the internship search. So that was a really good way to sort of protect that time for the search and not have competing priorities with classes and group work and things like that sort of encroach on it. That one hour of commitment was very essential into everything that sort of progressed from there. And even though I was not the most productive in that one hour, I was at least doing something. And by the end of the internship search group, I was already interviewing with organizations. I ended up interviewing with several organizations and finally accepting an organization that I was comfortable working with and was happy to have me. So that is just worked out perfectly for me. So I highly, highly, highly recommend the internship search groups. GCS is incredible. You should take advantage of their expertise while you're here and this is just one of the many ways that you can do that. Overall, it was a great search group. I had some of the best people working with me and helping me grow. And I would not have made it this far if I did not have the sort of perspective that I got from the people I was working with in the search group.