Social Impact Internships: Susan Hong (’27)
My name is Susan, and I’m a rising sophomore majoring in 6-9! I’m really interested in the intersection between technology and the human experience. This summer, I worked at Justice Innovation Lab as a data analysis intern.
My internship at Justice Innovation Lab (JIL) was my first time doing a lot of things. It was my first time writing code for something that actually mattered—outside of class and personal projects. It was my first foray into the intricacies of the justice system. And, it was my first time realizing that social advocacy was not as different from science as I’d thought. I worked as a data analysis intern, analyzing criminal charge data for patterns and trends to write a victim analysis report for Oconee County, Georgia, but I also had the opportunity to speak with members of the JIL team and learn about other projects that were going on.
After my first year at MIT, I’d been constantly exposed to computational methods and STEM concepts. In classes, I learned about the structured order of science, and during my research experiences, I learned how to collect data to prove a conclusion. I was able to pursue my humanities-leaning interests too, writing articles for the school newspaper and taking writing classes, but they seemed to run parallel to the STEM-filled future I was running towards.
However, during my first week at JIL, I was able to experience the real-world intersection of scientific rigor and human perspectives for the first time. As I met the different members of the team, I learned more about JIL’s mission of tackling criminal injustice, but also how they were working towards this goal in a systematic way: by targeting the justice infrastructure that injustices had been built into. This reminded me of how, if my experiment in lab had failed, I would go back through the protocol—the basis of the experiment—to see what had gone wrong and what I could potentially fix.
I also learned about how JIL was actually conducting experiments—implementing small changes in limited areas for certain periods of time, and then comparing resulting data metrics to another region that had just continued with the original policies, which I found intriguing. In high school, I’d been really enthusiastic about equity advocacy within my school district, but was quickly discouraged about how difficult it was to make everything happen. After all, individual student testimonials—and even historical data—could only go so far. This is why the JIL method of scientifically testing social justice policy/practice changes was so exciting for me—because, with a way to test out new ideas and prove that potential changes had a tangible impact, there would be a much stronger argument for broader changes. This combination of scientific methods and criminal justice issues—which I originally viewed as rooted in subjectivity—seemed to me to carry even more potential for real change.
Through my project, I not only learned about the power that computational and scientific methods could hold within the criminal justice system, but also about myself and my own capabilities. My supervisor, along with the rest of the JIL team, helped ensure that I could work on any/all tasks that I was interested in and provided me with space to learn without making me feel embarrassed for being unfamiliar with certain programming concepts. This was my first experience formally coding a project for a cause greater than myself, and there was a lot I didn’t know about data analysis and cleaning. At the start, I often tried to power through bugs and inconsistencies on my own, which was definitely a rewarding experience when I was able to succeed, but throughout the course of this internship—with the support of the JIL team—I also became more comfortable with reaching out for help. I pride myself on being an independent learner, but this internship helped me realize how valuable more experienced team members’ knowledge can be.
Even though the entire team is scattered over the United States, and my internship was both remote and mostly asynchronous, I was still able to experience firsthand the emphasis on community and collaboration. Once, I’d run into an issue with my code over the weekend, so I met with my supervisor to see if we could debug together. When she realized that her code was also running into a similar issue, she looped in another member of the team, and we were able to solve the problem within ten minutes. Seeing this real-time collaboration made me realize how important having a supportive team in the workplace is, and how efficient problem-solving can become when you have so many people at your side.
This internship taught me so much about possibility—the possibilities of intersections between scientific methods and more subjective fields, and the possibilities that lay within my own skills. As I continue through college and begin thinking about what I want to make of my future, my experience with JIL will no doubt remain a key part of this journey.
Tags: Social Impact Internships, Social Impact Internships 2024, Social Impact Internships Summer 2024, Tech for Good
