Beth is a Public policy graduate student who came to TSA through a partnership with the University of Michigan. She spent ten weeks working with the TSA team this summer. In the reflection below, she shares what she learned during her time with us.
Why TSA?
I first learned about TSA through a classmate at the University of Michigan, who interned here the previous summer. Due to a longstanding partnership between TSA and the University of Michigan, TSA typically hosts one public policy graduate student as an intern each year. My classmate raved about the experience, which piqued my interest.
As I began looking into TSA, I saw how well it aligned with my background, skillset, and interests. During my summer internship, I wanted to be in a position where I could challenge myself and learn a lot, while still being able to meaningfully contribute to an important cause. Reading about the organization, talking with peers, and interviewing with Sarah and Aylin confirmed to me that TSA was the right fit for my goals.
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My professional background is in the urban planning sphere, and my academic interests are in the fields of economic development, urban revitalization, and housing and infrastructure policy. As an urban planner, I strongly resonate with TSA’s position that the built environment shapes social outcomes, and vice versa—and that, subsequently, interventions in an economically depressed community need to occur across both areas in order to bring about real change. I appreciate and admire that TSA works across so many sectors (health, education, housing, employment, and more) as part of their holistic approach to development, with the awareness that these sectors are often overlapping and interdependent. Ultimately, this is what drove me to apply for the position, and I was thrilled to be selected!
My Responsibilities
Originally, the purpose of my internship was to create an investment booklet for an educational facility in Fakulteta, a highly disadvantaged Roma neighborhood in Sofia. To uplift the community and expand access to educational opportunities, the Early Learning & Care team is working to establish both a private school and a cutting-edge educational research center in the neighborhood, through a public-private partnership. My work involved compiling community needs statistics, reviewing business plans, financial projections, and site selection documents, and distilling all this information into a clear, compelling document for stakeholders to introduce them to the project concept.
While this project was engaging, meaningful, and educational, I was also eager to learn from other teams—especially the Housing and Zoning program, given my urban planning background. I set up coffee chats with colleagues across the organization to understand their work and explore ways I could contribute. I was struck by how welcoming and generous everyone was with their time. These conversations gave me valuable insights into the NGO sector in Bulgaria and sparked ideas for additional ways I could support TSA.
Through these connections, I took on several side projects, including research on social housing models across Europe and how they might apply in Bulgaria, particularly for anti-segregation purposes. This involved desk research as well as interviews with stakeholders, including a project manager of an anti-segregation housing initiative in a neighboring Balkan country. Hearing her experiences with such a high-impact project was deeply inspiring, and I’m eager to carry those lessons back to the U.S. Working on the social housing research reinforced my appreciation for TSA’s multi-faceted, individualized approach to uplifting marginalized communities. While the organization works to legalize, revitalize, and improve conditions within informal settlements, it also recognizes that, in some cases, other tools—such as social housing—are essential to providing safe and dignified housing for disadvantaged people.
Insights and Learnings
My summer internship was a transformative experience for me, personally, professionally, and academically. While I worked mainly in the office, I also had the chance to travel to different parts of Bulgaria and observe field work firsthand. Some of these visits were tied to TSA’s monitoring and evaluation efforts, which are central to their commitment to delivering high-quality results. Having studied these methods at the University of Michigan, it was valuable to see how they operate in a real-world setting. These trips also deepened my appreciation for Bulgaria’s beauty and diversity.
More broadly, I gained a clearer picture of how the NGO sector functions. Much of my previous professional experience was relatively solitary and independent, so it was very instructive for me to observe how TSA staff navigate relationships with other stakeholders and build partnerships with other organizations. I was invited to sit in on staff meetings, which offered an inside look at nonprofit management and organizational structure. Through discussions with staff and others, I also learned about Bulgaria’s policy environment—especially around issues like segregation—and how, at times, well-intentioned policies can backfire, unintentionally harming the very communities they aim to support.
One of the things that surprised me most during my time at TSA was the diversity within the Roma community in Bulgaria (and Eastern Europe, more generally). I quickly realized that while there are some commonalities between Roma groups, there are also profound differences, including religion, culture, and language. This reinforced for me why TSA’s work is so individualized and context-specific. A one-size-fits-all approach simply wouldn’t work; instead, success depends on building trust, understanding local dynamics, and tailoring interventions to the realities of each community.
On a personal level, being in a foreign country for an extended period of time has challenged me in ways that helped me grow. I had intended to study abroad during undergrad, but COVID-related travel disruptions made this impossible. I’ve been fortunate in my life to be able to travel and experience different cultures, but prior to coming to TSA, I’d never been outside the U.S. for quite this long. The daily experiences of life in a foreign country—navigating the metro, adapting to new social norms, ordering coffee in another language—pushed me out of my comfort zone. Through this process, I have developed a deeper empathy for friends and family who have immigrated to the U.S. and learned to adapt to life in a new country.
For future interns, I would wholeheartedly recommend advocating for yourself and taking full advantage of the many learning opportunities TSA offers. One of the things I valued most was the independence to shape my internship around my own interests and goals. I’m deeply grateful to TSA for creating an environment that encourages curiosity, initiative, and growth.