Thank You but Not Goodbye

Hi Amanda,

            I wanted to write you a genuine thank you letter to conclude my internship but this thank you extends far beyond my internship. When I first got the chance to really get to know you I was in a pretty rough place in my life and things just weren’t going that well for me. Honestly I wanted to quit college, it wasn’t that I was a bad student but I wasn’t motivated. If I’m honest I just wasn’t getting the university experience that I wanted. That was about two years ago now. You needed help with ASU101 and for some reason the opportunity to teach a class called to me. As I went through that semester it pulled me out of that dark slump I was in and by the end I was hired on as your student worker. I stayed around and helped with the online section of ASU101 in the Spring and it was fun but I loved teaching in person so much more. So when summer came and you were busy with Yali we agreed I would take on ASU101. Now I know only because you told me that you wish you could have given me more guidance but you were busy and I managed in the end I hope you are satisfied with what I delivered initially. As much as I loved teaching ASU101 I never knew how much my students appreciated me or how much I meant to them in shaping some of their college decisions until the Passport event in Tempe for the student organizations. I went to it for my brother who is a freshman and as I was walking back to grab the shuttle to take it home I was talking about my Mustang and out of the shadows a guy said my name. He was a student from my first class, honestly my favorite student because he took the troublemaker of my class in as a friend and straightened him out. I felt bad for him as that class was wrapping up because he was unsure how to pay for school. He recalled something I said to my class about getting creative and not giving up when the cards seem stacked against you. He ran with it and found a fulltime job with parking and now gets the tuition waiver. Turns out I help with retention too LOL. Taking on this internship was an honor and in that time my position in the college has grown and you were a part of that. So for everything and everything that’s still to come, thank you!

Sincerely,

Anthony

My Final Reflection

Looking back I think that my overall experience with the internship was positive. As I reflect back on my original goals I feel that I accomplished them. I was a little hard in my final evaluation of myself however the peer instructors enjoyed the curriculum I set up for the class. I think the most important thing that I learned is that working in hired education requires a level of patience and flexibility that is different from the traditional work place. That is to say that the faculty and staff in the university where so many different hats and fulfill so many different roles that it’s important to be understanding of that fact. I also took away that this is where I want to be. Obviously I want to do more than teach ASU101 but I know I want to work in higher education. I look forward to graduate school and I can’t wait for my next journey in chasing down a PhD. I know that being a professor is a busy and rigorous lifestyle but I also believe it is one that suits me best. I can’t do a traditional nine to five it’s just me. I look forward to reading the final thoughts of my peer’s internships and want to wish everyone the best of luck in their future endeavors.

End of Semester Scrammble

As the semester is winding down and I have been balancing fulltime work, a 19 credit semester, 2 honors projects, 2 ASU101 sections that I teach, and a 60 pound puppy with too much energy I am finding that time is a resource I just don’t have enough of. The madness of senior year was not something I was expecting and as we make one last mad dash to the end of the fall semester the stress and anticipation for the semester’s end is in full swing.

Prioritizing time for assignments has been the struggle of my semester. Unfortunately I feel that tonight it will be my blogs that suffer the consequence of being late. This is because I made the mistake of taking a lab science in my second to last semester and it has been giving me a run for my money. I forgot how demanding a lab science can be and I completely forgot to finish that requirement when I first transferred to ASU.

My curiosity is if anyone else has been feeling the strain of the semester and to know how you are handling the struggles you are facing.

Second Thoughs?

I wanted to use this free write to reflect on a few second thoughts maybe even regrets that I have about my experience. I wouldn’t say that they are things that will hinder my decisions in the future but I just wanted to write about them. So here goes. Did I get the right degree? I study entrepreneurship but then I asked myself is that my passion or do I enjoy being the entrepreneur. Maybe I should have gotten a degree in Industrial Design and pursued those ideas of things I wanted to create because with the advent of in-home 3D printers small scale manufacturing is possible. You know that has been a thought I’ve had for a while. My resolve is this. Finish my current journey, go to grad school, and start my career. Industrial Design is my passion and the technology will only get better with time. So when I have a job as a professor I will tap into my tuition waiver and learn a new trade, after that who knows because I really only want to learn design to compliment my hobby of restoring Mustangs (the car by Ford).

Second Career Services Experience

My second career services experience was learning about the Go Government webinars that they hosted although I wasn’t able to view the complete series I was able to talk with other students about them and I found it to be very interesting. I am striving to become a professor at a major research university. But the series intrigued me because I have never considered what my knowledge and experience could get me in a federal position.

I later did some more research on the subject particularly and saw that most of what I would want to do involved consulting and negotiating service contracts with various private and nonprofit organizations. I found the proposition to be exciting. I also learned how different creating a resume for a federal job is.

Organizational Strengths

I suppose my organization has several strengths depending on which aspect you look at it from. Leadership at both the university and college level beneath it would be one of the very first things I would pull from. In my opinion Michael Crow is a very unique asset to the institution. I truly believe that he brings a vision that is like no other in higher education. To ensure that his vision succeeds he surrounds him self by experts in their respective fields. In a sense this benefits our college because many of those within the leadership hierarchy that President Crow has created come from the College of Public Service & Community Solutions.

Now if I could change something about my organization there are two specific things I would change. I first made the observations these changes as a student worker where that carried forward as an intern and even as a member of the university staff. They are accountability and productivity metrics. I’m not at liberty to go into detail about the changes however in regards to productivity and accountability I will say that my experience in the private sector may have formed my expectations for work place performance.

Making My Class Worthwhile

Every time I step in front of the room to lead my ASU101 sections I make it a point to ensure that my students are getting something from the material we are covering. Whether it is showing my students faster ways to search the electronic library for research papers or emphasizing the importance of the resources they have available to them I always make sure I’m connecting with my class regardless of how much they like or dislike the course content.

One thing that I have done every semester in every section of the class was to take a few minutes with them on at the end of the very last class to have a “heart to Heart” so to speak with my freshmen. I just simply tell them that the road they have ahead of them is going to be long and stressful. There are going to be moments when they want to quit. They are going to question their decisions and will feel uncertain around many corners.

Then I tell them that I am going to share a video. It is an abridged version of the commencement speak given to the graduating class of the University of Southern California by Arnold Schwarzenegger the spring before his daughter started her freshman year. I tell my class that although his speech was given to a graduating class the lessons he shares will help them when they feel lost.

The video is below, please take a moment to watch it.