How i Prepped My Internship...

I have done a lot to prep work for my internship before I left. I worked a lot with one of the educators named Anna. For Anna I did a lot of spread sheets, and I left her with ideas about what could be done, as well as, a more organized space for the person who comes in and takes my place. I have put all of the work in a folder filled with work that only I had done so that it was easily accessible for whoever needed to find it. For the company, I have left my ideas for how to make the internship and organization as whole more successful. I suggested to the organization that every intern that comes in should have a project to accomplish while they are at the organization. This would have certainly benefited me, however, in the end; I left the organization with little bits of work on different projects. The reports that I had done for the organization told the organization suggestions on being more orderly as well as what I saw that I was good and also those projects that I thought needed more work. I think the reports also helped to leave the organization in good order. I truly hope that I helped my organization because I can see it succeeding and increasing its success rate. It certainly is one of a kind, and I am so glad to have been a part of such an encouraging team.

Oh, What An Internship...The Final Blog

The past two weeks have gone by so quickly. I have been trying to compact so many activities in the short time that I am here. Last week me and my roommate ventured off to Lloret de Mar in Spain, and then this past weekend, we ventured to the beautiful location that is Venice. There is so much to see and so much to enjoy while living in London, it is close to so many interesting countries. This has certainly been one of the best aspects of living in London.

My final week has definitely been interesting so far. I got a visit from an Anglo American representative on Monday; this visit was supposed to happen weeks and weeks ago. I honestly do not know the point of Anglo-American and why they came so late. They were supposed to visit earlier to see if our internship was appropriate and their reason for not doing this was scheduling. It was a little frustrating to hear that they were coming for a visit because I honestly didn’t think they were coming, and they only contacted our supervisor about the visit. This visit was definitely something that I didn’t feel like I needed, and it confused me very much. The only good aspect was that I got to talk about how good my internship was.

In my internship I have learned so much about myself and about the people around me. I have learned that it is important to be vocal when I am not happy about something, or when I am not doing any work. There have only been a few days where I have been observing the classroom. When this occurs, I have learned that it is a good idea to take the initiative and go ask another teacher if they need my assistance for anything. Usually I go to Anna who is the educator for the retail department in the program. She is new to the organization, and she always seems to need my help. She is one of my favorite people to work with because I feel like I can be open with her, and I also feel like I am helping her most.

Third Blog....Last Week at Camden Job-train: July 7, 2008

I thought this week would be pretty well planned out, especially since I was given a project to accomplish. This is certainly not what happened. I worked mainly with the teacher in the retail part of the program. I helped her to organize her students in many ways. I aided the students in fixing their folders and their Curriculum Vitae. These are both important aspects to the students work, and help them in getting both work experience and hopefully, eventually a job. The CV as they called it in England is the same thing as a Resume to us in America. After this, I helped the teachers, named Andrea and Anna, to get organized with the department. I made many spread sheets on different aspects of what the children needed before they could move on and graduate from the program. I made one spreadsheet on the student’s placements, and one on needed reviews for the teachers; reviews are basically progress reports that the teachers have to make. The students were assigned placements based on their interest and location, many of them went to a retail clothing store, while a few others went to a grocery store that was across the street from where they lived. It was a very exciting thought for the students, and I cannot wait to hear about their experience, and also about how they feel about the work they were given. I also hope that many of these children get the chance to get a valid work placement, or job, after this is over, which seemed likely based on the site visits that I went on.

Another activity that I did last week was when I had a group discussion with some of the students about America and the culture. One of the classes that I sat in on was with an educator named Dave who did classes on personal development. He was excited to have two Americans in the job train center and wanted to have discussions to take advantage of this (another intern joined me last week from West Virginia University). One of my favorite aspects of the internship is interacting with the students. They all have skewed ideas of what the United States is like, so it is interesting to hear their questions and views. Most of the time their ideas are completely off and differ from how things truly are; many of the students watch American television and listen to American music, so they think it is very easy to live in the States. One of the students was talking about an uncle he had who lived in Miami. He told us about his visit to the area and about how his uncle was extremely wealthy, making life so easy for him. The student truly thought that life in the United States was easy for everyone. It was interesting for him to hear that not everything is easy in America and that most people had to work, and work hard for their money so that they could support their family. These discussions are definitely the most beneficial parts of the internship to me, and I think to the students as well; we learn a lot from each other. I hope to have many more discussions like this so that my knowledge can continue to grow from the students.