The digital meeting took place on January 26, 2019. I had the meeting with Linnea Escobar, Travis Baron, and Savannah Frank.
Linnea interned at a tea salon in Lund, Sweden. Her mentor is Lina Bäckström. Daily tasks include making tea, cleaning tables, taking orders, and doing dishes. Linnea’s internship project is translating their website into English and taking photos for the tea salon’s Instagram account. What stood out to me about this internship is that it is in Sweden and seems to get really interesting customers. Travis interned at a place in Temecula where costumes and a fan-made Star Wars movie are being made. His mentor is David Ortiz. Daily task was helping his mentor work on a character costume through drafting and building. Travis’s internship project is working on the main character’s chest plate and using foam to do so. What stood out to me about this internship is that it has to do with Star Wars and the costume-making seems really fun. Savannah interned at Knowhere games and comics in San Marcos. Daily tasks include helping run the comic shop and working on the internship project which was about business tactics and marketing strategies used in the comic industry. She did research and interviewed her mentor to learn from his experiences. What stood out to me about this internship is that it took place in a comic shop which is really cool and seems to have a very nice atmosphere.
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My internship has helped me think about my path after high school by helping me realize that I can see myself in this career. I enjoy working with kids and I think realizing this will help me choose a career that best fits me. It has also helped reaffirm that I like working with people and definitely would like to follow a career that does so. I would like to be in a career that has both elements of my junior year internship and my senior year internship because I enjoyed both. I thought being a pediatric nurse would be a great way to incorporate both internship experiences but I’m still open minded about other careers. The steps I would like to take as I start my journey towards my future career is going to a four-year college and getting at least a bachelor’s degree. I think during this time, I will have a better idea of what I would like to do specifically and be able to plan accordingly.
My Internship project was important because it was a way to incorporate a part of my identity and culture to my academic internship. It puts my fluency in Japanese to good use. It also connects my experience from my junior year internship, where I went to Japan, to this internship. Another way important because it introduces the children to another language which they can observe as they play in the classroom. The process for working on this was during naptime, I would walk around the classroom and take note of words on the labels. I worked on a document of the words at home with the words sized and formatted as labels in both hiragana and romaji. Then I printed them out and brought them to school. There, I would cut out the words and put them behind this protective see-through sheet to protect the label and pasted it next to the other labels.
The slide presentation for me Internship POL is here Part 1:
I measured the success of the work I did from how much I adapted to the work as the days went by and how quickly I can resolve conflict between children. I did a lot of mental reflecting on what I did at the end of the day and noticed how routine my schedule became and it ended up feeling very normal to be. I also took note of how quickly and creatively I am able to resolve conflict between children before they start to really cry or throw temper tantrums. From this experience, I learned how to be patient and how to be more aware of my surroundings. My work was significant beyond school and my internship site because by interning there I was able to make the kids there happy and supervise them which supports working parents in the community who need their children to be cared for during the day. It meant a lot to me when the children’s faces would light up just by seeing me. I’m happy if I can make their time there a little more enjoyable. Part 2: During my time as an intern, I have developed a lot of appreciation for structure for younger children. It helps maintain a level of control over children who are already very chaotic and sometimes don’t listen to others. It's hard enough to transition to a different activity during set times so without this structure so I don’t think teachers would get through the day if we didn’t have it. It also prepares them for school and being in more advanced classroom settings. My view of life beyond high school developed during my time as an intern by me realizing that I can really see myself working with children as a career. I thought that maybe this internship would scare me away from professions related to child care because it requires a lot of work and dedication but I really enjoyed my time here and I feel like I’m helping my community. My strengths are collaboration and staying organized. I work together with children and teachers and always do my best to resolve conflict so everything runs smoothly. I also help organize the classroom and my own work during the internship.
What I enjoy most about my work is interacting with the kids. I don’t interact with children in this age range usually so it's been a really interesting experience and they are very sweet. What I dislike about my work experience is how tired out you can get by the end of the day. The children have a lot of energy and get involved many different kinds of conflict so sometimes it's hard for me to keep up. I am used to sitting down and doing work all day like in school so it's a challenge but it's getting easier as time goes on. I am more used to office work but working with the kids makes the active type of work worth it. An area of my work I want to be able to continue improving on is my ability to resolve conflict. There is always something happening like a fight over a toy or one child shoving another that I need to resolve quickly before they start to cry. This internship has made me more aware of how I deal with conflict and I would like to learn more about how to better myself in this area. My current internship is much more chaotic than my internship from last year. My junior year internship was very calm and straightforward but during this year’s internship, I never know what to expect and it's very busy. I do similar kinds of work in both internships such as supervising people. My experience made me realize that I do enjoy working with younger kids. I plan on majoring in Nursing so I could apply this experience there by specializing in Pediatrics. I am working on creating labels of Japanese translations of words which corresponds to labels already put around the classroom. There are items in one of the classes that I work with have English and Spanish words of that item and my project will build off of that. Examples of items are cupboard, scarf, and doll.
Skills I need in order to meet and exceed my mentor’s expectations are communication, time management, and problem solving. These skills will also help me throughout my internship. I will need support from my mentor and teachers to make sure that my project ends up to be how they would like it to be Q 1: Why did you choose to work here?
My mentor worked at another childcare center in 2010 and came to the Center for Children and Families at Cal State San Marcos so she could work someplace her son could go. She was also told about the center by others. She worked as a teacher and eventually became the director in 2018 and worked with the company for ten years. Q 2: Do you consider a career in this area satisfying? In what ways? She knew she wanted to work in this field since she was eighteen and this job validates what she always wanted to be. She enjoys connecting with families and finds it very fulfilling. She also spoke of instances of running into parents who previously had their children at the center. Q 3: Is there anything you wish you'd realized about the world of work when you were my age? The pay isn’t very high. There is a wide range for salaries. There are things that need to be done at home for work such as responding to emails from parents and planning lessons. Q 4: What does it take to be successful in this organization? You need to be dedicated. Teachers need to still come to work when they’re not feeling great because families are counting on teachers. Ratios between children and teachers are important because they could get fined. Perseverance is important. It can be discouraging to talk to parents who are upset with teachers. It's also good to give yourself pep talks. Q 5: What other personality traits, skills, or knowledge are important here? You need to be a people-person and able to deal with different personalities. A teamwork mentality is also important because there are at least two teachers in every class. You need to help each other and stay organized when it comes to planning lessons and thinking ahead. When working admin jobs it's important to know how to use excel and other computer programs. Q 6: Is there anything else you’d like to add or share about your current job or career path? She can’t imagine doing anything different. She also taught before which helps her while working in this environment. She plans to continue this job and teaching college courses at night. Big childcare centers crossover to different states so it's more convient if you’re moving. I have questions about how teachers decide what to do to help students who are struggling to socialize with other students and what that process is like. My internship is very similar to a school environment because there is structure and things being taught. The difference is that rather than I being a student, I have a “teacher” role so to speak by supervising children and making sure everyone is getting along. There are a lot of funny stories about the children I work with and the things they say and do. They really like saying “hi” to me and waving. They also sometimes ask for more snacks when they still have a lot in their hands which is funny. My internship organization’s purpose is to prepare children for “real life” by teaching them how to be independent, practice self control, and share. This is done through having them put away their plates and water bottles when they’re done, learning how to deal with their emotions, and taking turns playing with toys. I am developing a lot of creative conflict resolving skills. Compared to resolving conflict with my own peers through rational thought, while working with children, I have to look at situations from their point of view and solve problems accordingly. An example of a situation that actually happened this week is two children are fighting over a puzzle they each want to solve themselves. Instead of saying the person who hasn't played with it should have it because they haven’t done it yet, I’ll tell them that I’m having trouble solving another piece and could really use some help from one of them. Then, one of them wanted to help me and by doing this I prevent them from fighting or crying and they practice how to help people and do puzzles. This internship has differences and similarities from my internship last year. I mostly worked with elderly people which included supervising them, helping them walk which I do for the children as well. The difference is that there wasn’t much conflict between elderly patients. They were very calm and mostly quiet. My internship now is a lot more chaotic and I need to be aware of everything that is happening around me. What strikes me about the workplace is that there are a lot of classrooms and hallways. What strikes me about my colleagues is that they are very kind and understanding.
What strikes me about the job I am doing is that I work a lot with young kids and supervise them. I’m looking forward to working with different age groups to see similarities and differences between the two. I wonder how my internship will be a week from now. I will be going to the Center for Children and Families at Cal State San Marcos for internship. My mentor is Ms. Letisia Ford and she is the Center Director.
My project will be a product which will benefit the children at the center such as a book. My daily responsibilities will include supervising children and organizing activities for them. I am excited about learning what this career is like. |
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