I loved my internship project! I'm officially done today because I gave my presentation to the office, they were all really happy with it and they all said really good/sweet things about my work here the past month. It was extremely rewarding, I might've written more for what I could've done differently. What stands out to me is how far I've come as being able to research much better, and being much more comfortable with science now! It's super exciting to me anyways, but I'm very much so happy with everything I've done and everyone I've gotten to meet here. I'm going to miss it but I'm also excited to finish my year up at High Tech, and I have a new found appreciation for so many things that I'll keep with me, and I'll keep everything I've experienced here forever. I'm so glad I got to have this experience, and really couldn't have asked for anything better. I'm looking forward to everything I'll do in the future, and will definitely take up my mentors on their offer of being helpful to me in the future as references!
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For continuing my internship experience as a worker and student, I have gotten so much better at research work that it's kind of crazy. I've also learned how to stay so much more focused on work that can sometimes not be too fun to do and learning things I'm not as interested in but still paying attention. A lot of my work as well was self guided, so when an office of people is expecting you to have something done without their constant monitoring and holding your hand, and you're not self-managing yourself, it's not going to work out for you. So I definitely will take back with me to High Tech and beyond the self-managing skills I have strengthened a lot since I do know now how to get my work done and be productive without getting off task. I think even though it's easier at school to be distracted by your friends and your surroundings I now have a little more discipline to be able to say to someone "it was good talking to you, we should talk about (blank) more at lunch but I need to get back to what I was doing."
I think I have a really unique connection to my mentor because she is a family friend, and I think she'll keep an open connection to me beyond my internship. I knew it wasn't going to be the same connection as when I was younger and not working for her. But now I think it's better because I do have a lot more respect for how busy she is and everything she manages to do and she was still willing to take me on. And on top of that everyone was very welcoming to taking me on, and beyond Chris I think I'll stay in touch with pretty much everyone. I just exchanged phone numbers with Bee who is looking for a new babysitter for her two daughters (they are so cute!) I brought up babysitting for Ryan too, so maybe I'll see if he still needs something like that. And Liz I know I'll stay in touch with because she's another close family friend who my mom is really close to and she was already talking about meeting up with us sometime after my internship. I have definitely made some really strong bonds here and I have genuinely loved working with everyone I have because they're so welcoming, and it's a small office with very direct communication and connections because there isn't a hundred people you're trying to get to know, and even though I think kind of big when I think about owning a business or a law firm, I still can't help but also enjoy the smaller work environment. Aside from personal things like babysitting and staying in touch communication-wise, Chris invited me to a dinner event towards the end of this month that I'll be going to. I'm really excited for it and I think it's going to be really fun to get to talk to more people and maybe even expand my net-working some more. So I look forward to it and I've loved everything I'll be taking away from this internship in just two more days when I'm done. While I miss staff & my friends at school, I'm also sad to be leaving when I could've easily spent more time on my project and more time with my co-workers & everyone in the office. A lot of my co-workers went to really really amazing schools like Berkeley, Yale, & Stanford. But I've known for a long time where I want to go (I'd still apply to Berkeley & Stanford though). And I think being here has helped especially because in my free time I decided to start looking at schools and sign up to their email programs about updates and tours and applications etc. I think I definitely want to major in Criminal Justice somewhere, a new college I found sent me a brochure in the mail, it's Seton Hall in New Jersey, 30 minutes from New York and I'm interested in it for sure. Another one I've actually been to and have an increased interest in since starting internship is Lewis & Clarke in Portland. I'm also still as drawn to NYU as I've always been, but I find the idea of studying abroad more and more appealing. I've met with someone from UEL (University of East London) and I was extremely interested in the programs, I have a list of nine colleges I plan on applying to so far. A good handful of them are in state but if I could get out of California I definitely would. That's where I'm at right now, just figuring out where I want to go and figuring out what the best fit for me will be.
In my internship experience, I'm most thankful for the fact that I've been able to grow so much in only a month of working. I didn't think I'd feel that much of a change in myself even though all the (now) seniors said you will. I feel a lot more driven than I did originally, and I feel like internship is a really big way of helping you refocus on what you want to do after high school. And you're away from outside influence for so long like your friends and even not seeing your family as often (if you have long work hours) so it almost gives you a completely clean mindset when it comes to where you want to go.
When I said I wanted to go into law and the justice system when I was younger, I started sharing the dream with my family too. And I think part of me was afraid that maybe because I knew it made them so happy that that was the only reason I wanted it. I think its a common fear for a lot of young adults that when your parents or grandparents encourage you so much to go down a certain career path that you might not actually love it as much as you thought. But being here clarified I do and it helped me remember what I want. Its the same thing with college, the closer you get the more you realize how much you don't want to leave your friends and the people closest to you behind if you go to different schools. So you say that you want to go to school where they are even if you don't want to go to that school as much as they do. And I think I fell into that a little bit where I wasn't even sure where I wanted to go anymore because of friendships and really great people I have in my life that I don't want to move 1,000 miles away from in just over a year from now. My time spent here gave me so much clarity about what career I want, what colleges I'm going to apply to, (I made a list of my top 8 last week!) and I just feel like I've had a good enough idea of what I want to do, and all of it got enhanced to the point of me almost completely knowing what I want do. So I'm incredibly thankful for that, and I think like I said earlier I developed this understanding of the path i want to take because I have limited influence in my work place. My co-workers are strong minded and opinionated (in a really good, positive, friendly way!) and definitely have meaningful advice for me when it comes to my future. But at the same time, while they encourage me to apply to certain schools and look into certain careers, their main pitch is to just do what I want to do with my life. And I think with that support and encouragement but complete independence as well, it made it extremely easy for me to piece together exactly what I want to do after internship, and after high school graduation. While I was here I saw a lot of effective communication, diligent research, and had some really fun and
interesting conversations with everyone. All are things I enjoyed about the people around me. What I realized during internship is being Downtown confirmed that I really want to go to college in a big city type environment. I just feel more productive and professional working downtown for some reason. I also realized my career interests have expanded. Internship has influenced my life by showing me that I have a lot of interest in politics and human rights that I’d like to pursue sometime in my career. For college, I think I’d still like to study abroad, on the East Coast, or Northern West Coast. While the school’s and locations I’m most drawn to have not changed over the course of my internship, I am just more excited and motivated to attend college in the near future.
Above is my iPOL. I started by using the guidelines of questions to answer and making a presentation in the order I wanted. After that I wrote down what I was going to say for each slide, some of it at the end is pictures and I'm just going to go through them briefly, but everything else I have a pretty good idea of what I'll be saying. I do have note cards because the more I read them the more I'll just remember and not need them for the presentation.
The whole time during internship I had to stay in touch with Joanne and obviously coordinating with Jared as well to set this up. But even before internship started, I had to communicate with Liz and Chris for site visits and meeting people in the office to get acquainted with so I’d be ready to go in January.
For self advocacy, I learned how to advocate for my interests and idea when discussing my project and project outline with my mentor which will definitely be something I take with me when I go back to HTHI because we're project based and now I have a better understanding of how to pitch ideas more convincingly. My internship project is going good, I'm wrapping up the paper which was the largest portion of it. The idea came from me sitting with my mentor Chris during my site visit and she asked me about some projects I had done at school that may be similar to work I'd do here so I told her about the election project. Based off of that, we worked together to outline a paper on climate change, politics in climate change, law in climate change, and human rights. As well as that I'm doing a presentation separate from my iPOL. The first step was drafting the outline while researching, then writing the paper, and now I'm editing, concluding, and wrapping it up. I learned how much I really am in love with writing (no matter what it is I'm writing!) And I learned more about all the topics I've been studying, and I've learned how to stay really well focused & on task.
At school, my week usually starts by going to a class, having a lesson and then doing some kind of work about the content afterwards. I work with my friends and classmates the entire day, and then go home. The work week is more like I come to work, I get settled in, and start working on my project. It's the whole day of just working the entire time and only stopping for a lunch break. The interactions are different because it's a completely different social environment. At school you just kind of talk about whatever you want whenever you want whereas at work you have to be mindful that the conversations suit the kind of workplace you're in as well as monitor and make sure you're being considerate of everyones time and not taking up that time.
I think internship changes the direction of my life by pushing me in the direction I know I want to go in, which is pursuing a career in law and talking to the people here about their college experiences and being able to figure out how I can listen and take their advice. I think when I bring what I've learned at internship back to school I'll have a new way of being able to ask for the work I want, better express what I'm interested in, be a stronger self advocate, and have more confidence in myself within the subjects I typically lack it. Beyond school and internship, I've learned a lot about my own personal interests and overall wants in my future and I have a much better idea of where I want to go, what I want to do, and a clearer understanding of what I need to do to get there. I'm definitely grateful for the opportunity to be somewhere that gives me such a better idea of where I truly want to be and go in the future. What I’ve learned from my internship that will benefit me at school is how to work hard and stay focused. I’ve learned how to keep track of time and not be late anywhere. I’ve learned how to self advocate better and when it comes to the work I’m doing, I now know how to professionally ask for more of something I’m interested in while assuring someone that I’m still interested in everything else I’m working on. Originally, I wasn’t going to be writing about human rights in my project, but once I let my mentor know that it was something I stumbled across during my research that I'd like to dive into, she told me to go for it but before I asked to do so I told her I was enjoying the content I already had to work with.
I think I've learned a lot about myself and how I best operate when it comes to getting my work done. I've always been fine working alone but I think now I know what works best for me, which is limiting my distractions, finding ways to refocus and keep my focus on the work I'm doing, and keep myself on a schedule. When I come in, I figure out what I need to do today, or what my goal is with my work. From there I give myself a loose schedule on I want to have this much of my paper written by this time, I want to leave at this time for lunch to make it back in time for this meeting, and I want to be here with my work by the end of the day. Its been working really well, as today I'm wrapping up the larger portion of my project and just finishing the content I need to add in so I can begin editing my paper. From there I will begin the second part of my presentation, being the presentation, and then before I know it my internship project will be completed. It's crazy that it's gone by so fast, and I could easily do it for another month. I definitely miss my friends, and a lot of the HTHI staff as well. But this experience has been so fun, and beneficial for me and my future educational and career path that it's going to be hard to leave. |
AuthorWhile attending High Tech High International, I began my internship January 4th, 2017 in BHFS, a law firm. My last day is February 3rd, and I am studying environmental, human rights, & political law in my time here, |