Intern everyone remembers: Self-advocacy
"One of the most important skills you need in a workplace is "self advocacy" - the ability to speak up for yourself when you need support, when you're confused about something, or when you're uncomfortable with a situation." - Alec Patton
“I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday. ”
― José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love
― José N. Harris, MI VIDA: A Story of Faith, Hope and Love
Self Advocacy: I feel like that I have advocated for yourself during my internship at the South Bay YMCA Teen Center. It has showed me a lot by advocating for myself. At my internship you can have a lot of down town if you don't ask for work and there are a lot of moments where you can just sit there do nothing. When we had that first meeting ay school about always asking for work because, some of the time your mentor has the mentality that you are just a high school student you are not capable of anything. is sad but it is very true. I know that on my first day I was set with a pretty are task that was very important. "Come up with a list of things that we can use for Academy" I had no clue what Academy was so I had to ask a lot of questions so I can be able to produce good work. Academy is one of the many camp programs that the YMCA offers over summer brake. Instead of spending time playing games and many different activities. Academy is a program that give kids to improve on there school skills by using STEM. They are able to provide a fun "summer school" environment they will be going on educational field trips that have to do what they will be learning form STEM. So working on my first task I really wanted to show that I am a teenager that can produce amazing work that will excited your expectation of what I can do. So I worked really hard on the assignment and when I turned it in I was really proud of my work and so was the person I worked on the assignment with. It was kind of cool to see that the work I did kind of surpassed his expectations of what I could do. Then all of the work I did went on to be used as a information resources for creating a lesson plan for Academy. I worked on this project for about the first week and a half so once I was done I really did not know what to do. So I had to go up to my mentor and ask for work. I wanted to be that intern that goes and ask for work and not just sit there waiting for work to be give. I think that this really showed then that I was more then just the teen intern. Yes I did do some of the work that was a not the most exciting for example: imputing over 100 names of all of the applications that would be working at the all of the different YMCA camps, cleaning and organizing the office, moving stuff to the camp storage shed out side, and helping come up with a list of games that teen could play at camp. Not everything I do as an internship will be exciting but, I was doing something. I was staying busy and always asking for work. Now my next task is something that I am really excited to work on and that is going up with a pitch about camp for young kids. This makes me very happy because, it makes me happy to get a feel of what I want to do in my future in Marking and Advertising. I have seen advocacy demonstrated in other situations at my job when it comes to working of the YMCA all of us are always coming to the people in the office asking for work so we can stay busy the more work you are doing faster your day goes by. I do think that I am following the advice in the article "How to be an intern everyone remembers"?. I am always asking for work, doing what ever they need me to do, and all with a positive attitude. I feel like if you are doing the work they ask you to do with a good attitude and you give 110% in your task and ask questions if you don't under stand then I feel like you are becoming an intern that everyone will remember. I wanted to leave that internship that I was able to do good work and make them say that "wow that was an amazing intern". Everyday when I go to my internship with the mind set of put 110% in whatever the task is with a good attitude so I can try and be the best intern I can be for them. I think that what I have been doing is working out because, I do believe that they can see all of the hard work I put into whatever I am doing.