This 4-week internship has been an amazing experience that I know I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. It doesn't feel like 4 weeks have already past us by, and I'm kind of sad that they have. It has been really fun working with all of the 5th graders, the volunteers and instructors, and the administrators upstairs.
I have definately started to consider what it would be like to work in a museum, maybe as an education director, maybe as a class-teacher. I've also heavily considered what it would be like to become an art teacher instead of an english teacher. I know what I'm getting into, I know that I will not be making 6 figures as a teacher, but I'm really taking into consideration the fact that art teachers aren't finding work. Art programs are getting cut if they haven't been already, and teaching art at the collegiate level might be an option, but one that kind of scares me. I like kids, I know that I don't want to teach anything below 6th grade, but I don't think I want to teach adults either. If I were to teach at the collegiate level, I wouldn't be more than 5 years older than my students, and I don't really know how I feel about that. It's just a consideration, I'm still very into teaching english, but it's something I've been thinking about more since I've been here. I'm a pretty intuitive person, I would say. As oblivious as I seem, I actually pick up on a lot of behavior cues and facial expressions that only last half a second. It was interesting to see the way that people at the museum interacted with volunteers, guests, and each other. Everyone was always polite to me and with each other, but I think two people can become a lot closer when they share a frustration for the same person/people/social habits. It was just interesting to see those relationships, and to straddle the line between being an observer and and a participator. I think I am going to be very prepared academically and professionally. I have learned how to maintain professional relationship in a workplace, I have learned how day-to-day work can be slow or really fast-paced. It depends on what your role is, and how you handle the stress and distribution of work. I think that I have been able to test the waters here, and especially at High Tech, I have learned that I work incredibly well under extreme stress, deadlines, public speaking, planning for large groups, and doing a lot of small things that lead into one big thing. For example, I cut so much cardboard for the 5th grade craft, literally mountains of cardboard squares, only to find that we needed even more for the next two classes that were coming the next day. What factors played into this situation? I was definitely stressed, there was a concrete deadline (when the kids pulled up in the yellow school bus), I had to mentally prepare myself to speak publicly to the 5th graders, and there were so many parts we had to get together for the craft, the gallery tours, the goodie-bags, and the reflection worksheets. Overall I had a really good experience t internship. I really loved where I was, the people I was working with, and the things that I was working on. I feel like I really learned a lot, and also contributed a lot to the environment. I'm sad that it's over, but I know that they would like to work with me again in the future, volunteering or for my senior internship.
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Part 1: Photo Essay - Final 17 Photos Part 2: My Internship Project - Explained
Part 3: My POL Slides Part 1:
When I was working, I measured my success mainly in how efficient I was, and the feedback I got from the people around me. I put all of the 5th grade reflection data into a spreadsheet, and that only took me four days, so I would consider that to be successful. When I was lading tours, there were other volunteers telling me how good I was with kids, and that I was a natural teacher, one man even wanted to pay for my college tuition, and I would call that a success. I gutted out the entire basement, reorganized and purged through everything, and every time someone goes downstairs their first reaction is "Oh wow!!" I would say that is a success. I have been pretty successful as an intern. My work was significant and meaningful to the world beyond and my internship site, because most of the workI was doing was receiving my mentor, and giving her time to get started on the big stuff. While I was copying data over from the 5th grade reflections, she was writing up a grant proposal to request more money for the ArtQuest program. When I was downstairs cleaning out the basement, she was planning for the Pajama Night, an event the museum is hosting tomorrow that is promoting literacy in children. Not all of what I did was indirectly helpful though, the basement is now a thousand times cleaner, and thus a thousand times easier to find things, there's more room to have classes and other activities, and it was something that everyone had been meaning to do but just hadn't gotten to it yet. Part 2: While working as an intern, I developed many appreciations through the many different tasks that I was completing. When I was leading the 5th grade tours, I cultivated an appreciation for the teachers who showed their students the pre-museum video we sent them, because their kids usually ended up being a lot more engaged in the art and in the scavenger hunt. When I was cleaning the basement, I cultivated an appreciation for the communication between my mentor and I, because I had a to of questions about what I could throw away, what she wanted to keep, what Robin Douglas wanted to keep, and the list of people we have to consult about materials goes on. One of the appreciations I really started to enjoy was the dependability of some of my colleagues, and the volunteers tees that work the front desk. I saw it when I was working in the office, if someone needed something done, someone else would immediately jump in and help. If I needed one hundred and eighty bats cut out, I could drop off a stack at the front desk and the volunteers would cut them out when it got slow. Everyone was so willing to help other people out, and it was really fun to see. Internship will definitely influence the direction of my life. I knew that I wanted to teach before, but now I know (as much as I love them), and I probably could not teach 5th grade. Being an art teacher was an option before, but now I find myself thinking about what that would actually be like. I am also making connections and relationships with people who have connections and relationships with people in both education and art realms. My mentor has already reached out to me about volunteering opportunities over the summer, and multiple people in the office have made mention to finding a job for me there, they just like me so much they want to keep me. This is the Van Hunnick Education Center (the basement), after I had worked my magic for two weeks. A close up of the shelves that I consolidated and labeled, down from two walls to just this one. This is the shelf mid-takeover, as you can see between this one and the picture above, a lot was moved around and re-reorganized. This was a picture I took, again, mid-takeover. The shelves on the right of the picture are the ones that I got rid of, and all of the junk on the tables is empty boxes that used to house something, or were just taking up space. This is my intern desk, up in the offices. One of my assignments was to record all of the information from every reflection, from every 5th grader in the Oceanside Unified School District, and that is the spreadsheet up on my intern computer. On the left is my Mario Kart water bottle, and behind it is a stack of binders that I shove stuff into sometimes. On the upper right, you can see a Fuzzhead that I attempted to make out of a bowl and some cotton balls that I found.
I have advocated for myself during internship in a couple of different ways. I am not one to shy away from what needs to be done, and I was able to advocate for myself to my mentor, to be able to complete the work that needed to be done. For example, In my work space downstairs, there was this trough-kind-of thing, and my mentor had wanted it out of the space for a while. I was able to advocate for myself, and move the huge thing myself. I was also able to advocate for myself when I was leading the tours of 5th graders. People would ask me if I was sure that I could take half of the class by myself, and I had to keep reassuring people that I was more than capable.
I am half way done with my internship now, and I feel like I am an intern that people are going to remember. I am kind and courteous to everyone I interact with, and I have left quite an impression with the volunteers and my mentor with my teaching/kid interacting skills. Wendy will start a sentence and I will have already known what she was going to say and have half of the task done by the end of the hour. I will do any work that she puts in front of me, and I think at sometimes Wendy thinks that she's working me to hard, but everything I'm doing isn't anything that I haven't done before. I can work with kids, I can lift boxes and organize the basement, I can move furniture that is on wheels, I can move furniture that isn't on wheels. I am very excited to be there and to be doing the work that I am doing, and that shows with my enthusiasm and drive. I have only just started the second week of my internship, and I have already done so much work. For starters, I will be cleaning the museum's basement. Currently, there are shelves lining the walls and a lot of stuff on those shelves that just isn't used anymore. My mentor would like to minimize the two walls to just one, and do something interactive with the other. I plan on finishing the consolidation aspect, and then moving forward with the Creative Thing my mentor wants to do with the empty wall. In order for this to be awesome, I am going to need communication with Wendy about what she wants to keep, throw away, what is feasible, and then have have the same conversation with the facilities dude, Charlie. I am also going to need my organizational and time management skills to get everything consolidated, and by the end of the two and half weeks I have left at the museum. I will need support from my mentor, facilities Charlie, and anyone else that is keeping things down there in the basement. I can imagine that it would get very difficult with people not wanting the basement to be made more efficient, and hanging out and heckling me while I clean. I will need mainly emotional support, and maybe a little snack support, but I already have all of the snack support covered.
Part 1 - Mentor Interview
My mentor was not in, but I did have the amazing opportunity to interview her colleague Robin Douglas who spends just as much time at the museum! What is your official title? Robin is officially a volunteer, but is also officially the founder of OMA's art classes. What are your main duties and responsibilities? Robin created the class program, and so she teaches a two-day class every week during the day, which focuses around a different specialty each class. She also teaches an evening class one Thursday a month, and that is the "Taste of Art," and her and her husband serve appetizers and drinks. With each class (during the day and at night), Robin likes to hone in on a specific artist or style to inspire the participators to create their own takes on classic art. Why did you choose to work here? When she first moved to Oceanside from Iowa, she was immediately excited to have an art museum so close to her, because she had previously taught art at the collegiate level for 42 years. She went to a lecture at the museum, and it was horrible, she could not stress to me enough how horrible it really was. After the lecture was over, she approached the then-director of the museum and proposed that she volunteer and lecture herself, and she had 70 people regularly coming to hear her speak, as opposed to the previous record of 10. The museum had to start limiting the number of people that cam to her classes, because there just wasn't enough space for everyone. What is the purpose of the Oceanside Museum of Art? People have told Robin that the museum has become their church. This is a place where people can grow confidence in their abilities, and it offers a safe space for people to freely have opinions on art that covers a wide range of topics from psychology to politics. It's here to bring people together, and expose them to new ideas to creatively express themselves. What does it take to be successful here? Robin said to me: "You have to have a passion to be here for other people, you can't be here for yourself." That really stuck with me, because both of us have this strong passion for art, but we're here to help other people connect with art, not for ourselves. She then said: "Someone once said that the greatest gift you can give someone is to listen, and I am listening through their art." It is amazing what you can do fro people, but strive in this environment, you need to be a good listener, you need to be a good promoter, and you need to give people the freedom to express themselves. To finish off her response, she quoted: "I went into art because there are no wrong answers." How important is getting along with other people in your career? Robin made a point to say that it is important to get along with people in life, and that recognizing other peoples opinions and respecting them are the real keys to getting along with people. She also included that to be successful anywhere you go, with people above and below you, you need to be prepared, you need to stay up to date with the art trends. and you need to approach people with positivity and kindness. It was an amazing experience to interview Robin, and although she is not my mentor, I feel like she gave me answers that will help me to flourish in this environment and the next one. Part 2 - Internship Reflection Some questions that I have about my internship: Is everyone going to think I'm lazy if I take the elevator instead of climbing the three flights of stairs to the offices? How exactly do the museum make money, like does all of it come from admission fees? Why is the default search engine Bing? I am using a lot of what I do at High Tech everyday at my internship. I have helped lead tours of fifth graders for the past three days, and have definitely used my public speaking and improvisation skills to their full capacity. My work is also referred to as projects, like the basement is a project, the zip code spreadsheet is a separate project, and all of the prep and post work for the 5th grade tours is a separate project. On Thursday, I wore my yellow jumpsuit, the one that everyone says I look like a plumber in. Anyway, I was walking from my desk to the basement, and I stopped at the front desk to ask for the key to unlock it, and the volunteer who was working the desk gave me the best compliment I have ever received in my entire life. She said: "With you hair, and the beautiful yellow, you remind me of an amazonian warrior." It made my day, and it was refreshing to be complimented on my jumpsuit, and not asked if I'm here to fix pipes or hunt some ghosts. One thing that I have learned already from my internship, is patience. I want to blast through the spreadsheets, but I need to be patient and cooperate with Bing, and USPS.com, and going back and forth between page and browser, and excel. Funny story, the week before internship started I got both bad and good news. The bad news was that the engine, transmission, and the catalytic convertor fell out, and the good news was that I got a car! Because my minivan (Bertha) has been getting new guts, I have had to rely on rides from my mom for the past week. I would like to have Bertha up and running for the rest of internship, but that is extremely unlikely since no one has even started to fix her until yesterday. It's just the first week, and I am already having so much fun at the museum!
The first day I started was a day that the museum wasn't open, so it was really quiet. Something that really struck me, was how much life the museum has when there are people there smiling at the front desk, and the docents in the galleries are giving people tours. It was almost like Night of The Museum, because all of the behind the scenes stuff happens on Mondays, and it was fun to watch. What strikes me the most about my new colleagues is just how nice and welcoming everyone is. I think you come to act that way after working with the public for extended amounts of time, but everyone is genuine and took the time to meet me and remember my name. I have received help anytime I have asked, and I have gotten nothing but positivity and encouragement from everyone I have talked to. What I found most interesting about the jobs that I am doing, was that I am not the only one doing them. For example, I am taking zip codes of people who have been to the museum, and researching what city, county, and state they are from. I am constantly going back and forth between the spreadsheet and USPS.com, and I am not the first person to try and tackle this task, and I'm only getting started into March. Actually I change my answer, I struck more by the amount of time that things take. It doesn't seem like inputing the zip code data would take very long, until you see how buggy the website gets, you're having to switch back and forth between USPS, Bing, and the spreadsheet, and then you see that you have 977 more zip codes on the list; almost every single one of them different from the first. I have been inputing for two full days now and I have just gotten past February. I am mo st excited about organizing the basement/classroom space, and helping to lead more of the tours. There is only one more week of them, but I'm still excited to talk to all of the 5th graders, and send them on the scavenger hunt. I am worried that I am not going to have enough time to finish all that I want to finish. The first week is almost over, and I have accomplished so much, but I feel like I haven't done very much in the basement, and I've gotten very far along with the zip codes, but there is also an incoming stream of new ones everyday and I'm not even out of March yet. I also have a fat stack of performance reflections from the teachers and students from the tours that have been led for the past couple of months. Overall, it has been a very good week, and I can't wait for the next three! I think the typical day at the Oceanside Museum of Art involves a lot of logistics. The Director of Education, specifically, has a couple of other key roles around the museum. She organizes and helps lead the 5th grade tours which every 5th grader in Oceanside goes to. Obviously, not all of the 5th graders in Oceanside go at the same time, but throughout the school year, the 5th graders go to the museum and do a craft. It's kind of a rite of passage. Wendy leads the 5th grade tours, collects and organizes the materials for the craft, and organizes their learning space in the basement (which is going to be my job).
The environment of the museum seems really relaxed, when I was leaving at 1 there were people just rolling up to start their work day. I do realize however, that showing up at 1 is not in my cards. With absences, I think the museum is like any other workplace, and that absences are tolerated with prior notice and communication. As an intern representing High Tech High, I plan on having no absences, and not being tardy at all. My mentor told me that the dress code was pretty casual, but when I showed up there were many people dressed business casually. There were 2 people wearing jeans but otherwise dressed up, and everyone else wore button-ups, blouses, and blazers. My career was really fun. It was a lot of cleaning, but also a lot of touring with 5th graders. The fifth graders were very fun, and we had an interactive activity that they really liked. The cleaning part was more organizing, but all of it is to prep for the re-imagining of the basement/classroom space. The re-imagination and consolidation is actually going to be my big project that I complete for my POL after internship is over. From all of my classes, I have learned how to organize. In every class I get assignments and important papers that I need to hang on to, and I wouldn't be able to if my binder was a mess. In my internship, I will use it to organize the museums many shelves of buckets containing craft supplies, and in serious need of a purge. In Math, I have learned how to be punctual. Mr. Corner asks a "Question of The Day" every morning with attendance, and I have learned to be punctual so I don't miss it. With my internship, I can't be late and let them think I don't want to be there, so I am going to be as punctual as I possibly can. Although it is not a class, from my grandma I learned how to clean and keep things clean. That is going to come in handy when I am scouring the basement space to push forward with the re-imagination of it. From all of my classes I learned leadership, and I will definitely use it when I lead the class trips to the museum. From being on the softball team, I learned how to be a team player. That is going to be applied when I am working downstairs, as I am not going to be the only person scheduling the space, and I am definitely not going to be the person calling the shots, so being a team player and taking direction is going to be to my advantage. The same goes for my communication skills, helping me to vibe with other people at the museum, and get things done in the space. |