During these past weeks I have advocated for myself a lot. I'm constantly checking in with my mentor on the little projects I work on. Constantly asking for help if I am in need of it, asking to look over things I work on or a second opinion. Its really not as easy as I thought it was gonna be because I tend to be a bit shy in front of people I barley know, but this has helped me get pushed out of my comfort zone, which is a good thing.
My internship has made me realize how important technology is. It has helped me see that with internship you can do and find so much. I really think that will be very beneficial to me once I start college, because if I ever find myself stuck, I can count on the internet to help me. Also I have learned that having a team where everyone thinks different from each other is helpful, because you get a lot more done.
My internship project will be creating a draft, or starting a curriculum for the basketball and soccer coaches volunteering at the YMCA. I will need to do a lot of research on other YMCA's to see how their curriculum's look and try to make it similar while not copying it. Also I need to make sure I use Border Views YMCA colors in the curriculum. The support I will need will be from my mentor and it will just be checking in with him every once in a while so he can see the curriculum and let me know what changes I should make or what to add/delete.
Mentor Interview:
1. What can I do in advance to be ready for the day? Continue doing research, and finding more things for competitive sports at other YMCA's, also anything to add to the sport curriculum that we will get started on soon. Another good thing is to look at the to do list, and see what I can get a head start on. 2. What are some thing I should know about you? My mentor believes to be driven in focus, analytical, and is always planing ahead to be prepared for any obstacles that may come, while the world comes with obstacles that we are never prepared, planing things ahead would be helpful to know how to better handle the situations. When it comes to professionalism his worth ethic and experience is what got him to be where he is today. On his spare time he like to volunteer, play beach volleyball, or adult basketball, and cook. 3. What is your job title? Program director of Sports, literacy and Volunteers. 4. Why did you choose to work here? My mentor choose to work here because he finds it extremely rewarding, and also extremely challenging. This is a job where he never gets bored, there's always something for him to do. Also he choose to work here because of the impact it makes on the community. Lastly there's always room to grow at the YMCA. 5. Is there anything you wish you'd realized about the world when you were my age? My mentor wished he would have read more. Another big thing he told me was not to think about the future so much. He said " don't focus so much on the future, and not focus enough on the present". If you focus more on the future you wont get as much experience in the present as you can. 6. What advice do you have about working at the YMCA? The first thing my mentor said you have to be friendly! You're going to have get out of your comfort zone, and be assertive. Also come ready to learn, because there's always something new to learn at the Y. Be excited and passionate but also be realistic and straight forward, while still being a bit optimistic. You gotta have a team that thinks differently but can still work together well.
Well first I have switched Internships, I ended up not getting a approval from the corporate manager at St. Paul's Programming on time, so I was placed at Border View Family YMCA in San Ysidro, which is fine with me and seems like it will be fun as well. What amazed me the most about Border View Family YMCA is that they're the smallest branch and the building is still huge! My colleagues all seem super happy and energetic and excited to work with the interns and it. It's gonna be nice to get to know them better throughout this next month. Something that strikes me about the internship I'm doing is that its very different from anything I would have ever picked or even thought of, but it seems like a good different. I'm excited to get started on projects and get into a different routine, I'm excited to get out of my comfort zone and have a nice change. I'm worried about doing things wrong, but then again I won't learn from mistakes if I do everything right, and there's always a bigger and better impact from learning from your mistakes.
Well what I'm almost set 100% on is at St. Paul’s Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). I'm just waiting for the approval which should come which come in within the next week or so. I'm pretty sure my mentor will be Irene Cabral.
I'm not sure on what I will exactly be doing so that's something I should look into these next couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward with working with elderly people, because I've worked with children, people my age and adults, but never with elderly so I interested in seeing how different it is, and learning new things from them, and hopefully learning new things about myself. I'm nervous about the first day but I'm more excited about it, and I'm really nervous about the waiting process on the approval, because if they say no I don't have any other options at the moment. |