Throughout the past few weeks of my internship at the Border View YMCA I have gotten a lot of chances to help out in some different ways. During the first week I spent a lot of time at the front desk. After being asked a couple of times to file some papers I realized what a mess the filing drawers were. They were supposed to be in alphabetical order but it was really in groups of letters or the same last names were together but it was kind of all over the place. Since I tend to enjoy filing I figured I would spend my free time getting the drawers in order. On one of the days I spent six hours getting just one drawer in order. The employees there seemed very grateful to me for putting the drawers in order since it would make finding files easier. Another big thing that I did was putting together a binder to help keep track of the members that were included in the scholarship since previously it was a little tricky to keep track of that information. I feel that while doing theses think I have improved my filing skills and learned how to better use some office equipment like the copier machine and some other things that helped make my task go a little bit smoother. I am really pleased with what I have gotten out of this internship and I know that what I learned and the skills that I have gained will help me in the future.
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At the YMCA as interns we are required to complete a paper that is kind of like bingo or tic tac toe. On the paper there are nine squares that say different types of workout classes that we need to complete before the end of our internship. The first class that one of my peers and I chose was one called vinyasa yoga. We chose this one because we thought that yoga was easy and calm so it would be a great way to get started. When we got to the class we got our matts set up and waited for the instructor to start. The class was very calm and easy going at first but after a while it started to feel like a workout, we were sweating and our arms and legs felt like noodles. When the class was done we were walking back to our work areas and we thought about how funny it was that yoga (something that is usually thought to be calm and relaxing) had made us feel so exhausted. The next class we took was a cycling class. I knew that this class would be worse than the yoga class because so many people have talked about this type of workout class and expressed how sore they were after. When we got in the class we set up our bikes and when we sat down in the bikes I realized how uncomfortable the seats were. It hurt me to sit on them for very long and my only thought was “How am I going to get through an hour of this?” When the class started I couldn’t believe how much of a work out it was. I didn’t understand how some people looked like this class was a piece of cake to them. While interning at the YMCA I have noticed something that I’m realizing is a quality I want when looking for a place to work. The people that work here at the YMCA get to know the members that come in and they get to know the people working around them. They have created friendships that exist outside of the work place. It’s not hard to see either, as soon as I walked in on my first day I could clearly see the friendships that have been developed between staff and members. When I started working with the staff they were very accepting right off the bat and started talking to me and getting to know me. I think this is important to me because being the social butterfly that I am, I’m constantly talking to someone, either catching up or getting to know them. I loving creating new friendships with different types of people especially people that are different ages than me because I get to hear about their experiences and how those experiences have helped them develop. Even of I don’t find a job like this, I think having a friendly work environment is very important because it can make working together with your coworkers that much easier than if there was no type of friendship at all and having this type of work environment makes it easier for new people to come in knowing that they can feel more comfortable around the people that they are surrounded by. So I would want to help contribute to making my work environment more friendly and open. As I am coming closer to completing my first week of internship I feel like I can say that I really enjoy what I’m doing. I am getting to know what office work is like by interning with the YMCA. I work with some of their computer programs and I have been doing a lot of filing, which some people absolutely dislike but, filing gives me a chance to feel like I have the ability to keep messy things organized and it helps calm me. For the past couple of days I have been helping out the people who are working at the front desk and it has been a nice way to slowly get introduced to what being a receptionist would be like if I ever wanted to take up that as a job. So far something that has really stood out to me is how being at the front desk can be one of the busiest jobs at some times like in the morning and evening but in the afternoon it can get extremely slow. I didn’t realize this is how it is in some places especially places like the gym. When it gets slow I have time to think about possible projects I could start up at my internship for example the filing there can get extremely out of order so I was trying to come up with a way to make it easier to find files that you may need quicker. One way of doing this that I thought of was having more specific areas for files so it is quicker to find files and you will have less to look through. Tomorrow is the NAMI Walk exhibition for my biology class. We have to get there at 6:30 in the morning. My group is planning to set up our booth under a canopy so we can hang out in the shade while presenting to people who walk by our booth. On our booth we will have our T-Shirts laid out on the table for people to see. I designed a couple papers for our booth as well that have some contact info for if people are ever having major issues with their depression and need professional support. Then along with those things we will be engaging our visitors in an interactive activity that will serve as a metaphor for teen depression. A lot of times people will describe their depression as a weight on their shoulders or a weight pulling them down like an anchor. In our activity we will have a heavy backpack and put it on our guests then have them do the simple task of sitting down and standing up just enough so they get tired because some people with severe depression are so exhausted that they don’t want to get up but, we only want to give our participants a small taste of what it’s really like so we won’t go that far. While the participants are doing this we will be telling them fact and symptoms of depression. After they complete this activity we will tell them how to get help and some of the best ways of doing so. When I was younger I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do for a career. I thought that I wanted to be a teacher but so many things have gone through my mind to cause me to change my mind to something else. During ninth grade I changed my mind to something to do with physics. Most of my current career ideas revolve around it in some way but now I am getting scared that I’m not good enough at math to major in physics. After thinking that I should probably major in something else, many different things have caught my attention but nothing has really stuck in my head. The other day I was talking to my Dad and when the topic of college was brought up (as it usually is in our conversations) I told him about how I didn’t feel confident enough with my math skills to pick a major like physics. He told me that I shouldn’t worry about my math skills as long as I pick something I am passionate about that I will learn the skills as I go. Then when he saw that I wasn’t really reassured with what he was saying he made a comparison “When a baseball player is being recruited for MLB he won’t just give up on the sport he is passionate about it just because it will be har. He will practice harder in order to prepare.” Then I realized my Dad was right, I really enjoy physics and why should I not pursue it in college just because I’m scared I am not good enough now when I know that I can work at math and make sure I’m prepared for what I want to do. This week we went through a critique session with people outside of our school. We went through two rounds of critique. The first round we didn’t have anyone to critique our work since not all the visitors showed up, so during that round we just discussed what we were going to say and how to present it in a way that would encourage helpful critique on our products. The next round of critique we had a graphic designer named David Varela critique our work. Since he was a graphic designer we wanted him to focus his critique on our t-shirt design because my group mates and I knew that it needed work. The critique we got from him was very helpful and I think it gave us a little push in the right direction. He showed us things that we could add to our t-shirt design to give it more meaning like adding detail to the band-aids and positioning them in meaningful places on our brain like where it is related or linked to depression. Then he told us that we should manipulate the design of a band-aid to signify things that could help with depression and put them on the corresponding parts of the brain. Although the changes he said we should make were small I know they will make a big difference and help us get our message across in a better way than we tried before. After we finished critique we talked with him for a little while afterward and he told us about a form of critique that he is familiar with and how it really helps include others ideas into one. The first person draws out their sketch and then passes it to the next person and they add something to it or they change it a little so that it looks better and you continue passing it around. I After my Stanford tour I had to rush over to SFSU to make it to my next tour on time. When I first got on campus I didn’t even realize it was a campus, it seemed so different from other universities that I’ve seen in the past. Once I walked into a more central part of campus is when I really saw it as a university and not just a bunch of buildings. While taking the tour I noticed that the environment there on the campus was very positive. Many of the students seemed to be having fun and spending time enjoying themselves. There were groups of students on the lawn blasting their music through speakers and others were playing games with each other. I haven’t really seen much of that unless there was an event going on at the time but this time there wasn’t. When I was talking to my tour guide she told me that the faculty and professors at SFSU try their best to accommodate to student needs. Some ways that they do this is by bringing dogs into the main lawn on campus for the students to come and hang out with the dogs during finals. Another thing that they had changed to accommodate students is the library. To maximize study space they put all the books in a sort of room and you go to a computer that is there and type in the book you need then a robot goes to grab it for you and bring it to you. With all the extra space they put in private and group study cubicles and spaces. In the student health center on campus they offer a lot of different services for your health that they reduce prices for to accommodate to the students. Students can call in for emergencies or for of the phone consultations. After visiting Mills College I had a certain expectation for how my tour at Stanford would be. Let me just tell you I wasn’t expecting the tour to be what it was. The tour group was huge compared to the tour I got the day before with 4 people other than me in my tour group. That made it a little tricky to ask my questions since everyone else had questions of their own but I managed. My tour guide transferred to Stanford this year (his junior year) so when I asked him about the work load he gets in his classes he admitted that at times it can feel overwhelming but he is still trying to adjust from his former college. As a transfer student he is still getting to know his professors and the faculty there and form connections and relationships with his professors but he did say that the teachers want to create connections with their students and be able to provide the help that is needed both in and out of schooling. With the 1 to 23 student teacher ratio it is fairly easier to do so. At Stanford they have a health center for students called Vaden Health Center. After paying a health fee students can access various health services including a 45-50 minute therapy session. At Vaden their goal is to help students thrive with the environment they are put in. They try to make the health services as accessible to the students as they can so that the students can perform at their best. Today I got the opportunity to go visit and take a tour of Mills College. When you get on campus the roads are lined with trees, there is a lot of plant life, and they have streams running through campus as well. I really appreciated that since nature has always been a place for me to get away, it keeps me happy and calm. Also having a beautiful campus inspires people to go outside more often or at least to hang out near a window where they can see outside and that way they are able to get some sunlight exposure which will cause your brain to release a hormone called serotonin that will help with being calm and focused. Why don’t we all just study in the sunlight? The tour I took was lead by a junior who was double majoring in theater and history, an ambassador for her college, and is involved in multiple clubs. So when I asked her “Does the amount of work you get assigned ever make you feel hopeless?” she replied with “Yes! All the time but, that is self inflicted. I’m a bit of an overachiever so I want to go above and beyond what is needed.”. Next I asked if her professors cared about her doing well both in and out of class. She told me that when she feels too overwhelmed she can talk to her professors and they understand what she is dealing with and they will accommodate to her needs. The last thing I asked her is if she felt like she could trust the faculty in her school to help her out with anything she was having issues with and she told me that because of the small classes (12 students to 1 professor) she is able to create relationships with her professors and they really do care for her well being. While going to school at Mills College students have access to an on campus doctor that is available in their student health center building and 8 hours of counseling for whenever it may be needed in their counseling building. |
AuthorMy name is Sofianna Sanchez and I'm a junior at High Tech High Chula Vista. I'm wrote these blog posts weekly to help me prepare for writing them daily during my month long internship. Archives
June 2017
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