MEET THE INTERNS: Phoung Tran and Shannon Alack on the Rhodes Summer Fellowship
“I was shocked by how much I am learning. I feel like I’m going to get a lot from this experience, even though it’s only two months. Since we’re a nonprofit company, we have a lot more to do and a lot of responsibilities, so we learn things quickly.”
This Summer, City Leadership is hosting interns from all over Memphis, each with different stories, motivations and dreams, but the common interest in bringing hope to our city.
Today, we’ll be spotlighting CL’s Rhodes Summer Fellowship interns. Through the program, students connect with a non-profit of their choice and partake in invaluable work experience. Not only does the Fellowship get students involved with community engagement, but participants can also earn F11 credit at the University. Rhodes University also compensates interns for their time spent giving back.
Meet Phoung Tran
Phoung Tran is a rising junior at the University of Rhodes with a major in Business and Data Analytics. She got involved with the Summer Fellowship Program as an outlet for “real-life job experience– something to put on my resume.” Only having lived in the States for 2 years, Phoung was inspired by Memphis’s persistence in a way that reminded her of her hometown in Korea. She says that “Korea may be a developing country, but that means there are more opportunities for growth and change.” Phoung was drawn to City Leadership’s Choose901 marketing team and wants to learn more about social media handling in respect to business. During her internship, Phoung has been gathering fresh content featuring City Leadership’s interns and employees.
How did you get involved with the Rhodes Summer Fellowship program?
“I wanted to get real-life job experience– something to put on my resume. I was searching for things at Rhodes and found the Fellowship. I want to be more involved in community service. It’s a great place for me to get professional skills and understand who I am, but also how I can give back to the community.”
What motivated you to apply for the program?
“I wanted to see how I could impact my community. I spoke with a lot of leaders, like professors and staff members in Korea Services, that gave me leads. The program said that we are the leaders and we can affect, change, and do so much for the community. I am interested in seeing how specific I can get, because it's a very general concept.”
What’s a fun or surprising fact about you?
“I like collecting pretty cups and bottles. I make coffee and matcha and like to put it in them. Everything is so pretty, even if I don’t need them all.”
Meet Shannon Alack
Shannon Alack, also a rising Junior at the University of Rhodes, is majoring in Urban Studies with an interest in community development. She got involved with the Summer Fellowship Program after seeing a flyer outside of the Rhodes Education building. Shannon resonated with City Leadership’s mission to tap into every aspect of need in Memphis. “Choose901,” she says, “really speaks to the reach the organization has. Knowing that City Leadership has had such a wide impact gives me hope for the kind of work I can contribute.” During her internship, Shannon has been working data analytics and visualization as a means of informing City Leadership’s other campaigns.
How do you plan to build on this experience in the coming academic year or in future professional opportunities?
“So right now I'm working in data analytics, and I have a few personal projects that I'm doing for City Leadership. And so I'm using those to, once again, not only boost my resume, but also just get great experience and connect with the Memphis community.”
How do you hope to grow as a leader during your time at City Leadership?
“Well, right now, I've just been making some great connections with my fellow co-workers, and I've been trying to take initiative, like coming up with ideas of what to add to the table, what to do with my personal skills that maybe no other person here has.”
What’s a fun or surprising fact about you?
“My family loves to cook. We have restaurants. My brother's a chef. And so we have a lot of family cooking for every birthday, every occasion. We don't really go to a party. We don't really do gifts. We come together as a family and cook. And I think that's really special, and it's something that I want to continue on in my life.”
