NACUFS Internship: MIT

My name is Rachel, and I am one of two interns here at MIT this summer working with dining services. The other intern's name is Susan and I will be writing on behalf of both of our experiences here in Boston! We are in our third week, and the time has flown by! Both Susan and I already in love with this city, the people, and everything it has to offer. Since there are too many details to post about every day, I am simply going to give a summary of each week.

Week One
When arriving in Boston, I was in complete awe of the scenery, the active and healthy community, and the small town feel-despite it's size. MIT's campus in Cambridge and the city of Boston are separated by a small walk across The Charles River: a view I vowed to never take for granted while living in this city.

Photo of myself next to the Charles 

 Sunsets are the best here!

Susan!

For the first week of work, we toured all of the dining locations, while trying to get familiar with how the system works at MIT. We also had meetings with almost everyone here at the Res Life & Dining office, and learned about all of their jobs and how they pertained to dining services. The meal plan is very unique, with 5 dining halls, as well as over 30 retail locations. Residential Life & Dining has only been in existence for around 3-4 years. The factor that sets MIT apart from the rest, is that students are very involved in the decision making process when it comes to dining. I suppose that's what you get when working with some of the most intelligent students in America. The history is extremely vibrant as well. For example, since the 80's, there has been a secret faculty lead student group involved in something called "hacking" where students basically work together to pull some of the most prestigious, well thought out pranks ever. There are rules that have to be followed so no one and nothing is hurt during the process. 

      

Some photos of "hacks" from the past

Lastly, we got to volunteer at commencement! It was a beautiful day for this event. We worked at the information tent (ironic since we had only been here for one week- but we had a blast!)

Week Two 

This is the week where our projects actually began to take flight. There are about 5 large projects that we will be working on over the course of the summer, and this week we started on implementing a food safety training class for student groups who participate in bake sales on campus. We compiled information and put it into power-point form with videos, and plan on facilitating an online test for students to take in order to acquire a certificate for their year of bake sale fund-raisers. 

We also met with the new dietitian on campus and spoke to her about the farmer's market at MIT. We will be working with her to make recipe cards for the produce and information packets about how to shop smart at your local farmer's market. This will be a great promotional tool for eating local- and healthy! I can't wait until it kicks off! 

Week Three

Organization is the best word to describe week three. We collaborated with the associate director of MIT dining, Michael Myers, to break down what we would be doing for the rest of the summer. We continued to work on our food safety project, and met with more people that work for Bon Appetit, such as the marketing director, executive chef, etc. 

Pertaining to after hours, we went to a small local concert, and we got to use the "Hubway" for the first time

(a public bike transit in Boston.) We used it to go to Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for a garden party! 

Check the blog next week for more updates on our internship and Boston experience! Thanks for reading!