The internship with HAF was an illuminating experience which helped me to better understand global development and the conditions people face outside of the United States. The internship forces you to confront some of your preconceived notions of how business should run and development should/does occur. It shows what participatory development actually looks like on the ground and helped me to confront the idea that academic ideas only go so far. This internship has helped me to reshape how I think about the world and the people around me. The cultural divide helped me to conceptualize why some changes are so slow to occur and why some solutions are simply not feasible. This was something I could not gain from reading a textbook. This kind of revelation could only occur through on-the-ground experience and growth.