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[apex59a]

Hello #envir491 cohort! My host organization that I am interning at is called Connect-3. They are quite popular among Environmental Studies internships, and could possibly be first in “job” employment in the major’s history. Connect-3 is an organization that is in a little bit of a transition currently, as I’ve learned from my current experience. We are focused on working towards consulting environmental health projects, specifically in water, waste, and education, and away from a group that leads these projects in need of funding. 

My job so far largely revolves around my research project. I have switched some pretty large details from my Project Proposal and Learning Contract after I found out about this new transition and direction for Connect-3. My project is to create a portfolio of previous projects that have been successful/failures, and to analyze what was the reasoning for their respective results. The goal is to find projects that help validate the Connect-3 methodology: water, waste, and education are vitally interconnected and dependent upon each other in environmental health prosperity. 

I am enjoying the people I am working with on my project. One interesting thing that I have learned about is that when researching for projects, some organizations list their project funding, budgets, and overall expenditures. However, they are quite vague with the descriptions and categories, so it is difficult to decipher and navigate some of the projects hovering around hundreds of millions of dollars like the Gates Foundation projects. So to solve that issue, I re-organized my research to try and find some more feasible projects to analyze, that are more on the grassroots level budget and funding. 

I am enjoying my freedom with my internship, since I don’t have to be in a formal office setting. We mainly meet at Cafe Solstice (pictures above) to do work and team meetings. However, sometimes the freedom makes me not manage my time well.

I encourage you all to check in on Connect-3.org and look at the website as I help progress it and re-design it as well!

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a question. Do you know where your water comes from? Find out about your college town water, and your hometown water. I bet you’ll be surprised!