Please talk about any projects or events you are working on at your internship. Feel free to talk about examples of your projects and what you hope the outcome is.
This past month my internship has turned in a slightly new direction. I have started a new project to help them out, I am inventory their electronics. To be honest, I haven’t enjoyed every minute on it. I know I am the intern so I know I am doing the projects they don’t have or want to do. To help combat this I have tried to put my spin on the project, I labeled all the tablets in my own way so they are easier for me to keep track of. I plan on going through and doing this for most of their electronics. I also have helped them get ready for their casino night fundraiser. For example, I helped make and facilitated the making of buckeye necklaces with volunteers from Jones Middle School, ripped off sets of tickets for groups and the public and just being there as an extra set of hands there to do miscellaneous tasks to help them focus on the event. On Wednesday, the last time I interned before writing the journal I got to do different short-term projects. After doing a long-term project for a while I have figured out that I really enjoy to do the short-term projects instead long term projects like inventory the electronics. Compared to last month I have a better idea of what my day-to-day tasks are, I have gotten to know people better such as the executive director of After School All Stars Ohio. In the beginning she never came out of her office while I was there but recently I have definitely seen her much more than before. Another big difference I notice is how quiet the office is, since programming for After School All Stars has begun there are only a couple of people in the office working on projects compared to the whole staff working in the office at the same time. My hope for the internship to do more short- term and a more meaningful long term project. Maybe in the future I can help them with the process of writing a grant or do research for one. Overall I am having semi meaningful experience I have many things learned things include the fact I would have never learned without the program lessons such as how important deadlines are specially with grants. A week ago, Allison and her team were in panic mode trying to put together a grant that was due later that day. I have tried to make sure that all of my assignments on time or early to avoid the stress of getting something done on time. This month has definitely been interesting
Mid-Term Evaluation
Student: Margaret Lee Internship: After-School All-Stars Ohio, Development Supervisor: Allison Ansari
1. How has the student intern adjusted to the internship?
Margaret has joined ASAS during the busy time during school start. She has been tasked with a wide range of duties. Margaret has tackled each new project effortlessly, and has developed key relationships with the staff.
2. What are the main projects the student is/should be working on for the organization? Are they completing the projects in a timely manner?
Margaret has assisted with an annual fundraiser and camp in a timely manner. She has also performed administrative office duties on a weekly basis.
Student intern, are your instructions clear on what you should be doing?
Yes I feel overall in this internship Allison has given me clear instructions and if I ever have any questions or if I get confused about something she is always there to answers any questions I may have while I am working on a project.
3. Please describe the student's overall performance thus far in the internship
Margaret has been learning flexibility in the nonprofit space as she has joined our office during the beginning of school; however, this has given her a real insight into real nonprofit work. She has taken on a variety of tasks in her time with us and has offered critical extra hands-on support when we need it most.
Journal #2 Oct 25, 2019
Please talk about your midterm evaluation process. What was it like to get feedback about your work performance? How did it go?
I believe that my midterm evaluation truly reflects my time at After-School All Stars this past month I have been to pick up the regular schedule around the office. One example when I get to After School All Stars around 1:15 there are usually still one or two site coordinators/teachers that lead each school still in the office to prep materials and lessons then around 2 they leave to go to their schools. I am never surprised anymore when there are people in the office. I have done many miscellaneous tasks this month including looking up business that could donation gift cards for the Arnold Festival in March, taking donation boxes downstairs, helping sort plastic metals camp and writing names on water bottles for their hockey heroes event. During the internship,I have been able to grow my skills and go outside of my comfort zone. An example of that is me being able to go outside my comfort zone. This month they are doing a trick treating event in one of the schools and needed candy donated so they assigned me with the task of finding some. I ended up calling Sam’s club to see if they would donate candy for the event. That was nerve racking for me I had done very little actually asking for business donations so getting to that definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone. I additionally helped with the after the work of their Casino Night fundraiser. After their fundraiser there was some post event details and sometimes I forgot how much post event work there is I have hosted events before but sometimes I forget about the work. I sorted drinks, put materials away and wrote thank you notes. So far I have most enjoyed the time I have spent at After-School All Stars I have gotten to know the staff, more about the projects and the work they do, the grant writing process and how many grants there are actually out there. One thing I am really appreciative of is how flexible they are with my schedule. Now that Marching Band season is almost over I having to switch my schedule from Monday and Wednesday to Tuesday and Thursday to ensure I can be at swim practice. They have really cool with the fact that I have to do that. This past week we had a check in about the technology project and I think I am better place enjoyment wise about it just because I have the next steps of it wrote out.
Journal #3
Let's wrap up the semester with a final reflection journal. What did you like about your internship? What did you learn? What would you change? Any feedback about the program?
This experience has been interesting. Interesting in the fact because at times I have loved my experience and other times could have had a better time. The better experiences have been doing short term projects like making paper chains, laminating name tags and writing in-kind donations letters. The project I wish I didn’t do would be the technology project it really never came of anything but in retrospect I guess it was good to do a project like that just so I have experience of doing it so when I work in the nonprofit world, I know how to combat it. I learned a lot of useful information about how a non-profit works for example when you get a donation I learned you need to publicly thank you and with the creation of the food pantry at my high school I get a lot of donations from different student organizations so learning that skill was useful. Another skill I learned was how important deadlines are. As I watched Allison rushes around on a grant deadline day it makes me evaluate my turn in habits and I have worked hard to get the things I need to turn in a head of time so I am not rushing around day of trying to get important assignments and scholarships in. Overall I have enjoyed being interning at After-School All-Stars it sounds a lot better than sitting in committee meetings and I have felt like it more personally than the stories I heard from the statehouse. One thing in class I learned is that I really don’t want to go into public affairs before I took the class I didn’t know the difference between public affairs and non-profit but now have taken the class I have really discovered what I wanted to do in college. One thing I found difficult was OSU being on Canvas and my school is on Canvas as well so I had to switch back and forth from Canvas pages but I was able to manage it well. I will say having the opportunity to be a “college student” has been great especially to have the experience to hang out on campus, eat at the union and go to class. I believe it will help next year because I am not starting off next year without having some sort of college student experience.