by Vansh Gogoi, Class of 2025
The Luther Hodges all scholars welcome dinner was a wonderful experience to meet the
Luther Hodges staff, reconnect and catch up with my cohort, and learn more about
NCGrowth’s work and opportunities. During the dinner I was able to talk with my colleagues
about their cross-sector internships, hearing about the different types of industries people
operated under and learning about the diversity in opportunities within the cross sector
space. For example, I learned more about investment communities from my colleagues that
worked at CLIMB and I learned more about policy analysis and writing from my colleagues
that worked at the Washington Institute. In addition to talking about our respective careers,
the dinner was also a great bonding experience with my fellow cohort. After living with my
colleagues at the KAL firm I became a lot closer with them, and it seems the same has
happened with every other group in their cross-sector internships. This translated into more
barriers being broken down between scholars which allowed us to be more comfortable and
personal with each other. Many jokes were cracked and discussions started a lot more
smoothly.
Learning about NCGrowth during the dinner was also very insightful and rewarding. Taking a
deeper dive into how NCGrowth operates was truly fascinating, and we got to understand
the inner-workings of NCGrowths process with their client acquisition, maintenance, and
follow up. What particularly fascinated me was how integrated NCGrowth was with their
clients, providing clients with a specific analyst that would work under the client itself, almost
as if it were an externship. In many cases, analysts would travel hours to physically work
with their clients, giving the analysts a lot more of a personal and objective perspective on
their client’s work and mission.
The mix of the informational and personal experiences at Luther Hodges made it quite the
rewarding experience. I’m excited to attend more dinner events and sessions from the
program in the future!
