Truthfully, I almost didn't return after that first week. It was so tempting to give up, to trade the early morning train rides in stiff work clothes and a permanent yawn for lazy sun-soaked days with my friends at the beach. Who was I to think that I, a completely inexperienced and therefore naive high school student, could successfully tackle a job as challenging as the one I thought to be "resume worthy" if not "prestigious". But somehow, I made it. I'm not sure what forced me out of bed at 6 am that next Monday morning; possibly it was just my inability to accept defeat, or perhaps, subconsciously, I knew that there was something more than that first week, a "bigger picture" that I needed to see, a lesson that was waiting to be learned, an understanding of something new that was to be experienced and overcome.

        Walking into the office that morning, I was greeted by a note at my desk asking me to join my adviser on the top level as soon as possible. Confused, I took the elevator to the floor above. The doors opened to what can only be described as a massive room full of slightly organized chaos. People of all colors, sizes, and ages were spread across the carpet, the room alive with the sound of countless languages intertwining into an incomprehensible melody. My adviser caught my eye from across the room and waved me over in the midst of her frantic attempts to take notes and translate at the same time.

        "Grab a client and a clipboard," she directed, motioning to the stack of clipboards next to her and then to the sea of people clamoring for attention. "And welcome to 'intake day.'"

        I found myself thrust into the middle of the room, with 400 eyes suddenly begging me to talk to them, hear their problems, understand their pain, and help them. I filled page after page with names, occupations, phone numbers, siblings, religions, but mostly stories. Stories of homelands, churches, family, torture, death threats, hunger, escapes, births, deaths, life... the stories engulfed me, overwhelmed me, made my head spin. What struck me most was the passion and strength that accompanied these life histories, the determined look in the eyes of the people who spoke to me in heavily accented French or broken English, the way their hands and bodies carried their words with a sort of weariness I had never witnessed before.

        It was sometime during this sea of countless eyes and words that my mind inexplicably flashed back to a commercial from the Dow Chemical Company that I had seen earlier in the year. The ad championed the "human element" as the reason for the company's work, the ideological component of the periodic table that connects all of humankind. At the time, I hadn't given much thought to the commercial, dismissing it as just an overly-sentimental attempt to generate public support for a corporation. But as I sat there in the middle of a never ending flow of words and tears and pleas, I could find no other way to define the inexplicable connection I felt to these people who had fought through so much more pain and grief than I could fully comprehend. Though so many worlds apart, we were all, in a most basic sense, composed of the human element.

        What I had most anticipated about such an internship was, in the end, something I was never meant to experience; it was this understanding of the human element rather, something I had no intentions of learning about during my time at the National Immigrant Justice Center, that impacted me instead, and for good reason: although my work at that first intake day led to the type of projects in the asylum program that I had longed for, there were still times when I would find myself back at that same gray cubicle, entering names into the overcomplicated database. Fortunately for me, because of my new understanding of this "human element", there arose a newfound meaning, a genuine significance attached to the tasks and duties I was assigned to take on. I began to fully realize the weight one small action can have in the world of someone who had nothing. The concept of our common humanity energized me; no, it motivated me. It served as a constant reminder of that which connects the farthest corners of the world. It allowed me to understand the shared responsibility we, as people, all have to protect and preserve the human element. The purpose of my internship took on a whole new meaning for these reasons, and in the end, I was grateful.