by Manuel Lester S.Niere
I consider this summer one of the most productive, if not the most productive, summer I’ve had since I started college. This summer made me experience what employed life feels like.
When I applied as an intern at the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP), I expected to gain knowledge that will be useful for my individual development and in my pursuits in the field of Development Communication. My expectations were quite high because of the good feedback I got from previous interns of ANSA–EAP.
I was assigned to be part of the Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) and the Enhancing Transparency for Impact (ETI) projects. I was supposed to use my writing skills to come up with concept notes and process documentation, my photography skills for photo documentation of the different project activities, and my video editing skills to create audio-visual presentations. However, as I managed to complete these requirements, I was also able to take on some extra tasks that I enjoyed accomplishing. For example, I was asked to consolidate and analyze results of survey questionnaires for Pilot 2 of CPA. I enjoyed it because I suddenly became literate in the many features of Microsoft Excel—in using pivot tables, to be specific. It was tiring to look at the results of survey from more than 400 respondents but it sure was meaningful and interesting.