This Internship experience did not really make me consider a college path that will ultimately lead to my career, I've already decided what I want to do with my life.
The first day here my mentor told me the higher your degree is depends whether or not you get an office, my mentor, Lisa is an inspiration. Lisa use to be a top notch sales person for Barns and Noble but applied for a position at the Oceanside Public Library for fun. When she got the position she loved it and how it fulfills her life. Learning this was very nice because it reminded me I can always switch career paths in life and find something that truly makes me happy. As for my own academic and professional preparation, I have no idea what that means but i'd like to think I have been professional in this internship.
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Part 1 Questions:
How did you make a meaningful contribution to your workplace? How did your project go from an idea or inspiration to a final product? Overall have my contribution to the Oceanside Public Library been useful? I'd have to say yes, although the tedious work of cutting out 304 kelp, counting stacks of 25 flyers 50 times, or folding 300 brochures seems like the busy work it is, it's really taking a load off of someone day. I don't feel like the small projects I do on the day to day basis really matters but taking on thinks the like afternoon community snack everyday do seem to matter. My original project idea started off a couple months ago when I was with my sister, driving to McDonald's. She works at Casa De Amparo, a foster youth home, and she had simply said "I wish there was a club for teens, so every time they went out they didn't have to be in danger." Later, when brainstorming ideas for my internship project I brought it up to my mentor Lisa and her co-worker Amy. I suggested a dance for foster youth and now i'm in the process of planning it. I'm not sure if it'll actually get approved yet but I mean I'm go ahead and plan for it. Part 2 Questions: What new questions has your internship inspired you to ask about our world? What has it made you wonder about? What are you moved to go out and do or learn about on your own time? How did your view of life beyond high school change or develop during your time as an intern? How might internship influence the direction of your life? During internship I've asked many questions about life: What's the difference between seaweed and kelp? Why do we get dizzy when we spin? What's the difference between Veterans day and Memorial day? Siri has helped a lot with these questions. My view of life beyond high school has not really changed, but my presidential speech has, I think instead of selling the great America, I'll focus on the opportunities of a great America. I know that all the drug addicts aren't going to want to quit. I know that all the kids won't want to go to school or learn. I know that walking down the street not everyone is going to be nice to you. But I think making sure everyone knows about the safe public spaces, making sure there's places for people that want to learn to go to, and having faith in the system of authority to speak up. Those are the things I want to focus on. The Oceanside pubic library has showed me the strength in community and all the different programs the community could use. I self-advocate for myself by asking for specifics about a project
I've been adopting rule one in Corners, "How to be an intern everyone remembers", to be your professional/business self- meaning you should adopt professional mannerisms such as politeness, punctuality, and attention to detail. It's going well because I like doing those things normally too. For my internship i'm doing/creating several things including but not limited to: Putting together a toy check-out station, creating a intern/volunteer student handbook, making book lists for student book clubs, and even planning and discussing the plans for a foster teen youth dance. In order to do these things I need to be very organized and professional in my work.
What support you will need, and who you will need it from I'll need support for my mentor, Lisa, and Amy the teen senior librarian. They support me by listening to my ideas and guiding me. The best thing about this internship has probably been Maden, he's five years old and my first friend at the library we met Tuesday the 14th after snack (a community program for kids under the age of 18 to get food). I read him a Thomas the train book and I showed him how to get a library card. When he first approached me he asked how long I had been working here at the library, I responded "yesterday", to where he just looked very confused.
"Yesterday?", he questioned. "Was that a long time ago?", that's when it hit me. Kids don't understand the concept of time, and I didn't know how to explain it. "Wait!" He abruptly interrupted my thoughts, "That's one day, right? One day?" "Yes, one day behind", I was relieved and honestly excited that this kid understood days. "What?!?!" he shouted excitedly. Damn, I guess he doesn't understand the word behind yet. After hanging out for a bit he asked to hang out with me at the library again. We made plans for next week Wednesday the 22nd. What strikes you most about your workplace?
The amount of children and community members involved in the library events. Honestly I had never even been to a library outside of my school ones and when I moved to a high school that didn't have a library I completely stopped reading. I wish I had known that libraries could be so cool. What strikes you most about your colleagues? (remember this is a publicly visible blog) Most of them are women, hell yeah women power! What strikes you most about the job you're doing? I just love learning new things every moment, Tuesday I learned that kids have no concept of time and so a lot of the time I need to re word my sentences for children to understand. What are you excited about? I'm happy to be by the beach everyday (I walk there on my lunch sometimes) What are you worried about? I'm worried about not finding a good book that I'm into because I haven't read for fun in so long. Zulema Maldonado
Oceanside Public Library Senior Librarian Teodora Nikolova Contact Person (On Site): Lisa Ferneau-Haynes Email: [email protected] Describe your first impressions of the place. Focus on descriptive language and making the reader picture where you are. My first impression was pretty good, everyone was very welcoming and they were all super happy to have interns. Describe what you think a typical work day is like at this site. How big is the site? How many people work there? What is the atmosphere? Business? Business casual? It depends, I would help plan events or pick up any work they need me to do but on slower easier days I would be working on my student project. I would be in charge of my own breaks and lunch. It’s a pretty large library, on my career day I meet about 20 people and that’s basically everyone on site I did not meet the volunteers that come later in the day. The atmosphere is friendly and kind of open I feel like most of my work there is going to be choose your own adventure style. What do you think the business's general work policies are (tardiness, absence, etc.)? This was explained to me, my mentor Lisa said that I can be 15 min late and there won’t be a problem just to have good communication with them but they do understand that life happens. Describe the dress code. What does that mean to you? The dress code is pretty casual kinda like a librarian but like a teenager librarian. Just generally appropriate because its a library and not a strip club, ya feel? Please write a reflection about your Career Day experience. What do you expect the professional world there to be like? I expect it to be really causal but also with general expectations and time limits for certain projects. I will be expected to take care of my schedule and finish whatever I was supposed to finish that day. I think it’ll be really dope. In what ways do you expect your high school classes and the skills you have learned to apply to this profession Humanities (Library experience): Studying and building a library has helped me have a general understanding of how a library works. Also library work is self managed so that experience has helped me. Math(Problem solving):In math I have to work through my problems in the most efficient way and this can be applied in my internship when I have to. Bio(Researching):Bio has helped my research skills which is necessary to have accelerate information. |