This is the ID card that I got at the beginning of the month of May at my Internship. I see a great difference in who I was in the picture versus who I am now. After the month of May I gathered various amounts of unique experiences and skills from my internship site. These are skills that I had believed that I had built a familiarity with before the month of my internship. This practicing of skills connected to my time as a student, I have always practiced skills that I believed would help prepare me for my future professional life. Being in the professional environment of my internship, my skills were truly tested. There was a way that I had to become accustomed to my working space in order to truly succeed and produce my best work as well as exhibit all of my valued skills. I had observed the way the system of a school staff works. It is an unbelievable amount of time, effort, and emotional output that is produced within the site on a daily basis. I observed my mentor and had noticed that I had taken subconscious notes of the way she is able to maneuver throughout the variety of needs of her environment throughout her day. My mentor, Ms. Garcia, was my main source of “learning in a workplace environment” throughout my month here. It’s truly astonishing that the amount of major items she has on her plate, especially at this time of year. I believe that finding the perfect balance of school, work, personal life, and family is something that I have struggled with this year more than any other. Throughout the span of this year, I have felt as though there have been priorities in all aspects of my life that demand attention. I had struggles finding an equal balance between these. I believe that being in the professional environment, I felt the pressure to try to find this balance. Although, to me it seemed as though my mentor had mastered this, but she mentioned in our interview that she had struggle with finding balance between different aspects in her life as well. This lasted through college and well into the beginning of her career. Since, as a counselor, she was very involved in understanding and helping kids with their personal lives. With my time here I have improved on finding this balance and managing my time. Although I'm nowhere near perfect, I definitely have improved and have seen my priorities magnify and become much clearer. I hope that this experience has truly prepared me for my future professional career and allows me to feel comfortable communicating, managing time and asking clarifying questions in a professional environment. Understanding the importance of embodying these skills allowed me to create connections with the adults at my internship site.
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In this picture I am with the semi-final college wall in the counseling center. There is a lot of student and parent traffic in the center, therefor its the perfect place. I had just completed my last week of my internship at Bell Middle School. Throughout the long month, I was able to gain perspective of how much work and dedication staff members put into their work. It is an unbelievable amount of time, effort and emotional output. I observed my mentor and had noticed that I had taken subconscious notes of the way she is able to maneuver throughout the variety of needs of her environment throughout her day. My mentor, Ms. Garcia, was my main source of “learning in a workplace environment” throughout my month here. It’s truly astonishing the amount of pressing things she has on her plate, especially at this time of year. I believe that finding the perfect balance of school, work, personal life, and family is something that I have struggled with this year. Although, it seemed as though my mentor has mastered this, and mentioned in our interview that she had struggle with finding balance as well. With my time here I have improved of finding a balance and managing my time. Although I'm nowhere near perfect, I definitely have improved and have seen my priorities magnify. My contribution to my internship site was a college wall. On this college wall I used college flags that were already in the counseling center and I had created a label that would go along the flags to hopefully provoke some thoughts and motivation for the students. In these labels I included the average High School GPA, the Average SAT score, the acceptance rate, the male to female ratio, and the tuition of the school. This information is enough to provoke further research into the school.
I found once I was comfortable communicating with my mentor, I was my most productive self. Ms. Garcias office door was always open and she was always willing to help me and answer any questions. As this is my third and second to last week interning at Bell Middle School. I feel as through I have been able to feel the pressure and workload that my mentors regularly stress. The significance of the work we are doing together really drives and allows me to persevere through it. I feel like the relationship between my mentor, Ramona Garcia, and I has progressed immensely from the first week I started to now, Jamarai haven't felt too well therefore it's typically me and Ms. Garcia working together. I feel that a bond has been formed which allowed me to feel comfortable asking questions and getting her feedback on what I am completing. This has caused my work ethic to be at its all time high. I feel the drive to complete all the tasks that my mentor asks me to complete, and it pushes me knowing that this is making my mentors busy life a bit easier. I am so happy that Ms. Garcia is my mentor, she truly inspires me with her ability to maintain such an amazing composure throughout her very intense work days. As I work in the main counseling center, I see all the students that are sent in due to teacher referrals. I see students act out, I hear the reason why they were sent there, and the best part I get to see the counselors reactions. There's not a day that I'm not amused at my internship, whether it's the amazing and kind students that I am able to talk to or the students and their questionable action. I am glad that I am interning at my site because I feel as though no other place could have taught me lessons and given me experience quite like this one like this one.
I see that my mentors are very hardworking and hold personal connections with their peers and students. I see that they really hold a strong sense of caring for their students. I really admire that the staff around me holds a strong sense of dedication and perseverance in all aspects of their work. To me this is very admirable, its admirable to hold a deeper connection in your workplace, yet still hold a professional stance. I believe that finding the balance of a professional connection and a personal connection with your peers is important. There is a huge load if work on my mentors plate, this work is layered and always serves purpose. This work requires team effort and a critical eye, as we have noticed mistakes easily apear. I was able to see the complex system that the staff had created, in order to properly serve the students of the school. Each set of tasks that had been assigned to my interning partner, Jamarai and I, always demanded a careful process in order to correctly complete it. We have noticed that all the work we are assigned are all part of a greater assignment. This is vital to the success of the students at this school. Throughout my time at Bell Middle School, I have come in contact with many students, these students are very welcoming and very kind students. It’s interesting to see how different this middle school experience is compared to my very own experience just a few years ago. Since I am in the middle of all of the commotion of the school, in the counseling office, I see many different types if students walking through. It raises the question of what more is happening that produces the observed behavior that I have noticed. This also has formed true admiration of the patience that the counselors and staff members hold.
I am very interested in Psychology and mental health. I believe Brain Health issues are important to address and have open conversations about. Raising awareness and encouraging conversation will help reduce the stigma. My big dream of my future is to open own practice. I would love to become a psychiatrist and be able to serve my local community with mental health support. I would love to feel as though I succeeded and had done the most I possibly could to get to that point. I would love to be able to support my family and the people around me. I would like to be a self sufficient individual that is successful and hard working. I would like to be a reliable source to many people of the community, through true dedication and goal making, I know I can meet meet my dream. At this current point in time I feel a bit disorganized and hectic at the moment and bit discouraged. I think I could work on this and get on a steady path that will allow me to succeed. Im excited for a change , a change from my everyday school schedule and hopefully gain some insight into my future general career path.
Throughout the month of May, I will be interning with Ramona Garcia at Bell Middle School. Today is my first day, Monday May 6th, 2019. I am very surprised to see the similarities and the differences between the Middle School I went to, High Tech Middle CV, and this middle school. Overall my first impressions are the range of students that I have come across, most are very kind and welcoming. I am very excited to start finalising our final project and start to create some type of product. Jamarai and I have just finished settling into our office space. After some time organizing it, we have created very productive working space for the both of us. We are now starting the drafting process of some of our project ideas. Our idea is to utilize the space of the counseling room at our internship site. We have come up with some ideas that could benefit and inspire the students of our school. We hope to incorporate college and grant information, local community service events and access to local resources. We hope to make the counseling center an even more welcoming space for students as well as making it a place full of useful resources and information.
To serve and contribute to the community, it means to have the communities best interest in mind, and to truly hold purpose to your actions. I believe that Rob Riordan wanted to really emphasize the importance the internship experience holds to students and their character. It is clear throughout this quote that Riordan believes the intern makes the experience what it should be. The goals and its accomplishments are in the students hands. My internship site at Bell Middle School, is there to serve the basic needs of students. The internship i will be apart of really focuses on the well-being of students that may not have basic needs met in other areas of their life. This schools supports children in the local area. Serving and supporting others around you will build your character and empathy towards other, this will make you an amazing team player. Serving lower income students that may lack support will ensure stability through this generation. I feel as though I can truly embody perspective and use this as an asset. Therefor as a current student, I am able to relate to the young students of my site and understand what is most effective. I believe it would be beneficial to design a safe space for students of Bell Junior High to rely on. I also believe it would be beneficial for students to have a zine promoting advocacy of such taboo topics in society, mental health. I would design a zine for students and faculty to provide information to students about such a innovative way of spreading ideas/ information through personalized art and writing.
Throughout my years at High Tech, I had been challenged in all subjects in very different ways. Through these challenges, I had learned different methods to work through them and problem solve independently and in groups. A specific skill I have practiced throughout my years of projects as a student would be familiarity of general technology. I hold enough of an understanding to have the ability to operate most programs. A specific project that comes to mind would be a project that I did in 7th grade. My team and I had a task of designing and executing and functioning machine with wood. We designed our machine using Adobe Illustrator, therefore I had spent countless hours using a fairly advanced design program. Many projects I had worked on required work on photoshop, adobe illustrator, Video editing programs, and countless word documents/ presentations. Therefore I believe I am relatively proficient with such computer programs. As common as class projects at High Tech, are individual presentations. These presentations are requirements throughout the school year to show growth, and simply as class assignments. Presenting to groups and communication is a skill that I have practiced and learned to feel comfortable doing for the past 6 years. This also has taught me to be a strong listener and observer. I believe I would be able to apply this to a adult-environment, since I understand communication is an important asset to any working and productive work place. I also believe having security in the quality importance of your work is important as well. To have strong confidence in ones own work reflects the quality and effort that was exhibited in the work through its curation process.
I am very interested in Psychology and mental health. I believe Brain Health issues are important to address and have open conversations about. Raising awareness and encouraging conversation will help reduce the stigma. My big dream of my future is to open own practice. I would love to become a psychiatrist and be able to serve my local community with mental health support. I would love to feel as though I succeeded and had done the most I possibly could to get to that point. I would love to be able to support my family and the people around me. I would like to be a self sufficient individual that is successful and hard working. I would like to be a reliable source to many people of the community, through true dedication and goal making, I know I can meet meet my dream. At this current point in time I feel a bit disorganized and hectic at the moment and bit discouraged. I think I could work on this and get on a steady path that will allow me to succeed. Im excited for a change , a change from my everyday school schedule and hopefully gain some insight into my future general career path.
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Amanda GalindoRead my experience throughout my Junior Internship. ArchivesCategories |