Heraclitus once said, “Everything flows, and nothing stays still.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, about how everything moves forward, no matter how slow. Even in places where progress feels invisible, something is constantly shifting.

When I started my internship at the United Nations, I didn’t expect his words to echo in my mind. But as I walked the long hallways of the Secretariat, watching people debate, analyze, and sometimes wait for decisions that took weeks, I realized that forward motion doesn’t always look like movement. Sometimes it’s planting a seed, sometimes it’s asking the right question, and sometimes it’s quietly building the tools for change, even if no one notices at first.

A moment inside a shifting institution

My badge still works. My internship won’t officially end until late November, just before Thanksgiving. But I can feel it already. Not in the workload, but in how I move through the building. Slower. More aware. I am sure this chapter will end soon, even if I haven’t packed my things yet.

I joined the United Nations during a complicated time. 2025 marks its 80th anniversary, but this year is remembered not just for the celebration. The 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA80) also shows that the organization now operates at 80% capacity. Budget cuts. Hiring freezes. Restructuring. For staff, this means pressure. It means witnessing how leadership behaves when everything feels uncertain for interns like me.

Learning what crisis teaches

At Columbia Engineering, I participated in a professional development course, “Leadership in Crisis: Maintaining Trust When Things Go Wrong,” taught by Professor Helio Fred Garcia, the President of the crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group. One idea from that course stayed with me: most leaders ask the wrong questions in moments of disruption. They focus on speed, appearance, or blame. 

But the right question, he said, is simple and profound: “what would reasonable people expect a responsible organization to do in this situation?”

I didn’t expect to carry that idea into my internship, but it resurfaced. Not because the UN was failing, but because I could feel how carefully everyone was trying to hold things together. People were cautious. Decisions were slow. Risks were named but not always addressed. Sometimes that was due to structure. Sometimes it was just the weight of legacy systems.

Finding clarity in the pre-analytics phase

I work in the Department of Operational Support (DOS), specifically with the team that supports human resources processes behind the scenes. From the beginning, it was clear that the team cared about what they did. They saw inefficiencies and risk points. They wanted to improve. But like many organizations in transition, they weren’t always sure where to start, or how to explain what wasn’t working in a way that could lead to action. When someone proposed a different approach or introduced a new tool, the response was often hesitant. It was not because they didn’t want change, but because change wrapped in something unfamiliar felt too advanced, too far from the routines they trusted.

I walked into what we’d call a “pre-analytics” phase, a stage before structured data systems are in place. Much of the work was driven by experience and institutional memory. Patterns were recognized intuitively, but they were hard to quantify.

The situation reminded me of Professor Daniel Guetta’s case study, which I studied at Columbia Business School, called “From Intuition to Data-Driven Analytics: The Case of Dig.” Like many teams, the company had strong instincts but no consistent way to evaluate decisions. Once they began investing in analytics, they started to uncover gaps that intuition alone couldn’t catch.

What data can reveal

My role as a Data Analytics and Business Intelligence intern became less about checking tasks off a list and more about introducing structure where possible. I built visual reports using Python, a coding language for analyzing and displaying data. At first, the reactions were encouraging: “This helps.” “Can we show this to the team?” “I didn’t realize the delays were that long.” But over time, I learned that recognition doesn’t always lead to immediate adoption. Tools that once drew praise could be set aside, only to resurface later as teams test and adapt at their own pace.

Data can reveal the truth, but truth alone doesn’t move systems. Analytics don’t replace authority; it simply offers clarity, whether or not anyone is ready to act on it. In a system that’s slow to change and understandably cautious about moving too fast, analytics sometimes feel less like a bridge and more like a seed, waiting for the right season to grow.

When change moves quietly

Not all departments are in the same place. The Office of Information and Communications Technology (OICT) and the Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET) are already exploring artificial intelligence and automation. However, human resources are more traditional, especially on the operational side. It’s not a lack of intelligence or will. It’s just a different rhythm. And even here, I saw sparks. Someone asked if visualization could be applied to another process. Another person mentioned the possibility of automation. These aren’t headlines, but they are beginnings.

Of course, limits remain. The UN is structured in a way that makes approval difficult. Even small changes often require multiple layers of review and approval. Sometimes the most significant barriers are not the problems themselves, but how to talk about them within the system.

That’s why this internship challenged me more than I expected. I had to ask myself, “How do I build something useful without overstepping? How do I introduce structure without making people feel I’m replacing what they know?”

I learned that being effective in this environment isn’t about knowing the most. It’s about listening first, acting carefully, and building trust through the work.

Leaving quiet traces

Before wrapping up my internship, I picked up a small stuffed turtle from the UN bookstore. Something clicked when I placed it next to my old companion, Mr. Panda, a quiet constant through years of change, and a Columbia lion. They sat side by side on my desk, silently marking this season of transition. One representing the institution I learned from, the others reminding me of where I began, including my roots. This moment, simple as it was, felt like closure.

Heraclitus believed that everything flows, that nothing stays still. There’s a line from Hamilton that kept circling in my mind as I prepared to leave: “Legacy. What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”

That’s what this internship feels like. I don’t know what will happen to the tools I created, the visual reports I developed, or the conversations I started. Maybe they’ll evolve. Perhaps they’ll disappear. But the mindset, I hope, will stay.

Because when a crisis comes, and it has, what matters most isn’t just experience. It’s clarity. Structure. Action that’s grounded, thoughtful, and timely. And maybe that’s what moving forward means, not rushing, not forcing, but quietly becoming what you’re meant to be, one small step, one seed at a time.