Currently two weeks away from the end of the semester. Which also means, unfortunately, the end of my internship at the BNMC’s Innovation Center. My internship has been a super positive experience for me so far, so I’m slightly disappointed to know that the end is near. One of the coolest events that I got to participate in was actually one that I also helped plan, the Interns to Innovators Luncheon Mixer. On Wednesday, Nov 15th at 12pm, different interns from the different buildings that make up the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, came to the LEARN classroom at the Innovation Center and met for lunch with the BNMC’s CEO Matt Enstice. Some of the interns were from the Pharmacy, some from one of the startups housed at the Innovation Center, 43 North, some from the UB Medical School, some with backgrounds in Engineering, some Communications & Marketing, some Pre-Med, all different. Yet, we all ended up in the same room, as interns from within the same area, the campus, that has created for itself a strong reputation for being the best location for innovation within Buffalo, in the last decade or so. A very scary and nerve-racking situation to try and penetrate, for us, we later discussed. Once all 13 interns and Matt were together, we grabbed lunch and jumped right into conversation about a multitude of different topics, facilitated by Matt. A few examples of things we spoke on were education, as he asked us, the crowd, what it felt like to be students/young adults who also intern, and how we handle the pressure of the changing school system. We conversed about opinions on artificial intelligence, the growth of technology as a whole, and what visions we see for Buffalo, and for our own futures. We also discussed what we do at our individual internships, and shared spaces for us to keep in contact and create further relationships with each other after the lunch. We also had time allotted for us to ask Matt any questions that we may have for him, after he gave us his little spiel on how he ended up as the CEO of the BNMC. He said it has much to do with “being naive enough to believe anything was possible, and a little bit of luck. ‘Right place at the right time’ kind of thing.” Matt’s story really resonated with me because I found a lot of connections between his character, charisma and strengths, and how I see my ability within those things. I really enjoyed having that conversation because it made me realize what kind of person I have to be in order to believe in my dreams, wholeheartedly, and go for them. I have been struggling with trying to decide when and how I want to go about giving myself, fully, to even the craziest of the visions and dreams that I have set for myself to complete, and conversations and moments like that, really help me fall in love with being passionate about the work that I do, always. I have to be intentional with what I want and where I see myself going, and begin taking the steps to create those realities for me.

Getting to know some of the other interns in other places around the area was also a really cool experience for me because it gave me faces, to the names, of the people I had been communicating with throughout the internship. Email and all of the communication done through the internet always feels extremely impersonal to me. I want to be able to express myself the way I do in person, through online messages but it is just not considered social norms, as there are proper and professional guidelines for addressing specific things and people. So it was lovely to be able to have an actual interaction with these individuals that felt authentic, and educational in the best way, where everyone was respectful and engaged in the conversation the whole time, yet it still felt light, fun and interesting. That was one my my favorite memories of the second half of my internship. I am looking forward to these next two weeks left, and hopefully some of the projects we’ve been working on can come to life and I’ll be able to take some tangible work with me to keep as tangible memories, before I leave.