Today Smugereski works as an accountant at The GroundTruth Project in Boston. One of Semester in the City’s host institutes, GroundTruth is helping to groom the next generation of journalists while filling gaps in coverage of critical issues. In 2019, GroundTruth placed 50 journalists in newsrooms across the country and around the world; its goal is to raise that number to 250 by the end of 2020. That’s where Smugereski comes in; he’s part of a three-person finance team that’s helping to support the company’s decision-making around its ambitious goals.

He credits his internship with Union Capital with giving him the edge he needed to apply at GroundTruth — the company was looking for someone with nonprofit experience. It also shifted his career plans.

“I hadn’t been thinking of a nonprofit. I think it would have been unlikely that I would have applied for the GroundTruth position if I hadn’t worked at Union Capital,” he says. “Before my internship I was aiming for a corporate position after I graduated. It is rewarding to work for the GroundTruth Project because I know my work has an impact.”

The Women’s Center offers services and programs for women in a safe community environment. Many of these women, Blanchette says, were low income or homeless or had housing and food insecurity. Some had mental illnesses.

“It was not what I expected,” she says. “Working at a social service nonprofit in the Boston area provided me a really robust experience in public health. Almost all of the women were going through hard times I couldn’t even imagine.”

She spent much of her time building relationships and community with women from all backgrounds and all ages who faced struggles that included trauma, homelessness, domestic violence, drug and alcohol use, mental illness and economic instability.

The Colorado native says she also learned about herself — most notably, that she can do things outside of her comfort zone, and that “my self-doubt is just a voice in my head and not an actual limitation to what I can achieve.

“I can definitely say Semester in the City really improved my self-confidence. It has greatly enhanced my college experience and provided me with lessons and perspectives that I know will make me a better nurse and midwife in the future,” Blanchette says.

Self-confidence may be one of those intangible benefits that can’t be quantified, and you won’t find it listed in the curriculum, but the residual effect is something that many students carry with them after the internship is over.

“Semester in the City gives students the chance to develop and deepen both competence and confidence as they interact with real-world organizations,” says Fiona Wilson, director of the Sustainability Institute and executive director of the Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise. “The structure of the program combines high-impact learning and a rigorous internship with mentoring and support that helps students broaden real-world skills.”

“There’s no financial barrier for students, and that was important to the program,” Wilson says.

“Since Semester in the City launched in 2016, UNH has introduced a new president and a new strategic plan. Our program fits in nicely with President Dean’s goals of high-impact learning and student post-graduation success.”

“As an undergraduate majoring in sustainable agriculture and food systems, I knew broadly what I wanted to do but not what I wanted to specialize in. Semester in the City helped me realize that I didn’t want to go toward nonprofit and social missions. I saw myself as more valuable as a scientist,” Fogarty says.

Before his fall 2016 Semester in the City internship with the for-profit Green City Growers in Somerville, Fogarty had been doing research at UNH on water quality and carbon cycling while taking classes part-time. He grappled with the idea of spending his first full semester in Boston instead of on campus but came away thankful he decided to go.

“I would recommend the experience to absolutely any student. Semester in the City gave me the tools to communicate effectively. I learned how to create and deliver useful PowerPoint presentations, which most scientists can’t do. And it was a personal triumph because I learned I could live in a city,” the Exeter resident says.

Fogarty’s capstone project for Green City Growers involved developing a business-facing document about the company’s corporate wellness program, which had Green City staff working with employees at office parks and big companies to cultivate their buildings’ raised beds. It required in-depth research about the benefits of gardening to employee wellness and productivity.

“I also had to learn about my target audience in order to tailor the tone and language to what might interest them. Through this work I was able to develop graphic design skills in addition to the written work,” Fogarty says. “As a kid, I imagined myself as a scientist. Semester in the City helped me shift my focus back to that, and with the communication skills I’ve gained, one who can effectively translate data into a meaningful message for others.”

“At the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, it was emphasized to me how large a role the business community plays in solving social and environmental issues. I saw firsthand how the wealth and power of a business, if directed to the right place, could have a positive impact on people, the planet and profit,” Howard says.

While at City Awake, Howard worked with the director of economic opportunity on programs designed to increase economic equality in the city and helped launch PaceSetters, a program that connects large Boston-based corporations’ procurement teams with small, minority-owned businesses as a way to help redistribute wealth and experience.

“The experience not only encouraged me to search for a job steering businesses to be sustainable and socially responsible, it also gave me the competence and confidence to work in a fast-paced office environment,” Howard says.

FamilyAid Boston is where Nathan Richard ’22 did his Semester in the City internship during the fall of 2019. The nonprofit, which received a $5 million grant from the Bezos Day One Fund in December, serves homeless children and families in the greater Boston area.

The contact he had with some of those clients was “very humbling,” Richard says, noting that they faced struggles he had never been exposed to. “The resilience they displayed under such circumstances was inspiring. These people are in such difficult positions and it’s hard to imagine being as strong as they are.”

Having seen firsthand the effectiveness of FamilyAid’s work, Richard says his Semester in the City experience has only increased his interest in socially responsible businesses and being part of the change these businesses bring about. “The classes and work taught me that there are numerous ways in which to effect change, whether that is from the public, private or nonprofit sectors,” he says. “The tools and skills I learned will certainly carry with me as I am looking for a future position.”

And so the goal of Semester in the City has been met: to show students how they can make a difference. And be part of a new crop of leaders who value doing good in addition to doing well. And that profit is about so much more than dollar signs. It’s about people and place and need and finding a way to bridge the in-between.

Back in Durham, Fiona Wilson turns to the American philosopher and educator John Dewey to articulate what Semester in the City means to the Center for Social Innovation and Enterprise and to the university’s students. “Dewey said we don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on that experience,” she says. “Semester in the City gives students the space and the structure to do that. It creates the scaffolding to let that happen.”