I really can’t believe that I’m already four weeks into my internship. Here’s a glimpse of what life has been like so far…
Week 1: Education Pioneers Retreat
This summer I am Education Pioneers fellow. What does that mean? Well, Education Pioneers is an organization that recruits top talent from graduate schools (Business, Policy, Education, Law, etc.) and places them in 10-week internships in the public education sector. In addition to my summer internship, I get to come together with the 40+ other Fellows in the area 7 times over the course of the summer to learn more about issues in education and share our experiences.
This is Team Awesome (my teammate and good friend Roxann is taking the picture), standing next to our tower of awesomeness. The first exercise on the very first day consisted of breaking up into teams and trying to build the “tallest free-standing tower” out of the materials we were given. It turns out that not every team was given the same materials, which had a huge effect on their ability to build a tall/free-standing tower. My team built the biggest tower, but what amazed me was that as the most well-resourced group, we never thought to even look at what other groups had to work with and definitely didn’t event consider sharing or bartering our materials. What an interesting analogy for public education… This was the first of many things-that-make-you-go-hmmmm this summer.
Week 2: Stuck in the lobby
My placement for the summer is at the California Charter Schools Association. For the first week of my internship, my boss and much of the SF staff were out of town, so I didn’t have to go into the office until my second week. Sometimes it’s funny what logistical things people take for granted, until the new chick gets stuck. This photo is from a Wednesday morning when I was stuck in the lobby for a while.
I kept trying to push the button in the elevator for the 8th floor, but it just wasn’t having it. If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll notice that the elevator was not turned on for the 8th floor. About half an hour later, one of my co-workers came in and showed me how to get the key and unlock the elevator if I’m the first one in the office (this was at 9:30am). Later that day, I was the last one to leave the office, at 4:45pm.
Week 3: Staring out windows
I had forgotten what staring at a computer (or the wall of your cube) all day can do to your eyes. I’ve learned my lesson and am trying to take more eye breaks and stare out the window.
At my last couple of jobs, the windows always opened out to a beautiful view of the bay or surrounding area. This is the first time that the window provides a view of, well, other windows. I wonder what’s going on in some of these other office spaces, like the ones with the orange or teal/green walls.
Week 4: Chugging along
This picture isn’t all that exciting. I’ve been getting a lot of work done lately, so this is what life has been like the past week.
Really I’m posting this because I’d been killing time until Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences. Now it’s time to go, so I guess I’ll see you back here when I have another pocket of time to fill. Cheers!
—minimish
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