My First Internship: a summer I didn’t expect

Summer 2025 · Internships • MEMA • GIT Lab

I never expected to have an internship, like seriously. So when the opportunity to intern at MEMA came, I immediately jumped for it. I’d already had an internship going for about a month and a half with the GIT Lab on campus, but seeing the MEMA opportunity made me want to grab it right away.

Thankfully, staying in Pearl worked out for me, so location wasn’t a problem. The bigger challenge was actually making the time. I had to commit 20 hours per week at the GIT Lab, so I stacked my schedule: Friday (8 hours), Saturday (8 hours), and Sunday (4 hours) in Cleveland, then Monday through Thursday in Pearl for MEMA. Exhausting, but I made it happen.

Honestly, I thought I wasn’t going to get it. Even after Preston accepted me, the waiting phase with HR was brutal: emails back and forth, delays, and uncertainty. That period was the most heart-pounding wait of my life. It also gave me my first taste of how slow government processes can be, and how much patience matters when you’re chasing something you really want.

Fun fact: I was in Pull-A-Part with my friends at 4 PM in Jackson, looking for a side panel for her car, when I got the email saying I was in and asking when I could start. In my excitement I blurted out, “Tomorrow,” only to realize I hadn’t prepared anything. I had to drive us back 2 hours to Cleveland, rush-pack, and then drive another 2½ hours back to Pearl. (And no, I didn’t end up helping with the side panel because of that.)

On my first day, heart pounding like it was about to pop out of my chest, I drove myself to MEMA. I had never been anywhere near there before. I honestly felt so lost, overthinking where the entrance even was.

Which was dumb, of course — the big sign was right there. But I was so nervous I wasn’t thinking straight. My brain was running in circles instead of noticing the obvious.

But honestly, after meeting everyone that first day, I don’t even know why I was so nervous. They were so welcoming. God, I even got an invite to the very first Government Interns Summit from the agency that same day. Honestly, it felt like I could cry.

I got to meet with my GIS supervisor — honestly such a nice, cool guy. I totally vibed with his hobbies (I’m obsessed with the same ones), and I’m super grateful for his guidance while I was there. He’s the kind of person that’s just fun to talk to and easy to learn from.

I’ve been interested in disaster response for a long time, especially since the Philippines is an area full of natural disasters. Interning at MEMA felt like such a perfect fit for me. It gave me the chance to see how disaster response is handled at a state level and how GIS plays a role in it.

Part of my training involved completing FEMA’s IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800. Honestly, it was pretty fun to work through. The 100 and 200 took me longer since I was still learning the basics, but once I got into 700 and 800 it felt like a breeze. I already understood the standard approach by then. On top of that, I also got to do a Crisis Track lesson, which was surprisingly fun too.

I also got the chance to learn QGIS while I was there. My supervisor, Preston, challenged me to make a “cool” map in QGIS, not ArcGIS. Honestly, I think what I made was decent. I’m a student who still lacks experience, so anything beyond a basemap felt cool to me at first. But the best part was the feedback: he walked me through improving the layout so it looked like something I’d actually hang on a wall, not just a class assignment. Huge difference.

I was impressed with myself for getting comfortable in a completely new application, and I walked away with tips I wish I’d known sooner: things like spacing hierarchy, breathing room in the legend, and letting the data have a focal point.

And the exposure? Way beyond what I expected. I got to sit in on a GIS Council meeting — never thought I’d be in the room for that — and I even saw their UAS operations. I got to fly a drone. EVEN COOLER. I’m super thankful to my supervisor and to MEMA for letting a mere intern do all that.

More reflections to come…