A Day in the Life

My internship varied from day to day which made it very enjoyable. On any given day I would be in meetings, scheduling and organizing guest speakers, creating content for blackboard, and much more. My favorite part was the entire restructuring of the term project for ASU101. The reason I enjoyed working on that part so much is because the project transformed and took on several incarnations before it was finalized.

For those in this internship class who were ASU101 instructors in the fall of 2014 the term project was the Changemaker Challenge. Which consisted of groups of freshmen writing business proposals to Changemaker that helped to address public problems. The end results were very hit or miss. Knowing that my initial goal was to take my knowledge of social entrepreneurship and revamp the project into a college level run and organized project that was rebranded the Innovation Challenge.

From that point there was talk of a new college pedagogy and how to incorporate it into ASU101. The initial idea was to fuse the pedagogy into the innovation challenge. My biggest concern was that the project would become way too burdensome and become too large for a one credit hour class. My final solution was to scrap the all the ideas of a term project and build something new from the ground up. The new project named the Community Impact Portfolio was well received and was a collaboration between myself and the person tasked with service learning for the college.

The reason that I shared this experience in a condensed manner was to explain that I was very active in decision making processes and that a day in my internship involved a magnitude of creative and critical ways to solve problems and find solutions. 

Discretionary Balance

I decided that with this post I wanted to talk about a part of my internship that caused me to think slightly out of the box in order to deliver an outcome that everyone was satisfied with. I had lots of different things that were required to be in the curriculum for this course. There were times that because of the nature of what my supervisor was doing contact was not possible.

This led to me having to make direct decisions over how the course was going to look. I will admit that there were times when I questioned whether or not I had the authority to make some of the decisions I did but I just took charge because I had no other choice.

My biggest concern was the amount of content that the university and the college wanted in the course but also understanding that it is a one credit hour class. I felt going into this that ASU101 needed to be a resource not a burden to the students so my goal was make the class useful to them so that they didn’t feel that the course was just a stupid university requirement.

I call it discretionary balance because I was basically given a list of everything the class needed to cover and it was my job to find a balance between what was needed and not overwhelming the students. In the end I felt that I achieved what I set out to do and the positive response I had from those I reported to was very reassuring.

The Unexpected Challenge

Right from the beginning my internship had challenges that I knew I was going to face. Initially I thought the biggest challenge was going to be a matter of dealing with the bureaucracy of a public institution and the level of red tape that comes with it. What I found is that for all the hassle that does come from the extremely long chain of command approval system ASU is fairly efficient. My dad for example works for the City of Mesa and has told me how it’s nearly impossible to get things pushed through at times.

The real challenge came in two parts. First my supervisor was asked to help with the Young African Leaders Initiative that our college hosts. This made her completely inaccessible which was both good and bad. It tested a good amount of the skills I’ve built over the years. The second challenge came way of creatively implementing the college’s new pedagogy into the already existing lesson plan. I had to stay extremely dynamic and accommodating in my resolve when handling both situations.

I can't seem to get away from this place!

   So I'm going to talk about my organization and how my internship happened by chance. Before I accepted a full-time job with the university I was a student worker in the Office of the Dean for the College of Public Service & Community Solutions. I also taught a section of ASU101 in the fall of 2014 and an online section in the spring of 2015. My supervisor at the time asked if I would be interested in creating the curriculum for the course for the fall 2015 because she knows how interested I am in becoming a professor. So the conversation then became can it be used as my internship. The answer was yes and it grew from there. So when I say I can't get away from this place it is by choice.

   Arizona State University is at the cutting edge of innovation and a world class leader among higher education public research institutions. It was founded in 1885 as the Tempe Normal School and it hasn’t looked back. The University has experienced massive growth over the years and under the leadership of its current president, Michael Crow, ASU has transcended the boundaries of a traditional public university to what is referred to as a knowledge enterprise.

   Specifically I work, now full-time, and intern in the College of Public Service & Community Solutions where I support the functions of Academic & Student Affairs. Our dean, Jonathan Koppell, has led a massive transformation and advance of the mission our college delivers on. It is a very inspiring place to work and so it was a simple decision to intern here. The responsibility of my internship is to coordinate 15 sections of ASU101 for our freshman class that delivers on the expectations of both the university at large and our college.

Some Background About Me

     I just wanted to start by taking some time to introduce myself and give a little context to my goals, interests, and aspirations. My name is Anthony, I am a senior in the School of Public Affairs and I major in Public Service & Public Policy with a concentration in Nonprofit Leadership & Management. Additionally I am a student in Barrett, The Honors College and I am starting work on a Thesis/Creative Project this semester that will encompass applying sustainability and entrepreneurship to a community project.

     Working in the public sector was not my original life plan it just happened to be something that I fell in too much like the degree I am taking. My original career was in the wireless telecommunications industry where I have held a number of mid-to-top level management positions with various service providers. I’ve also owned two businesses and continue to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors primarily in property management now.

     My plan after graduating is to continue through graduate school where I plan to obtain a Master’s in Public Administration and then proceed into a Ph.D. program that focuses in Public Affairs. Research has always been something that has interested me. As an undergraduate I have been fortunate enough to gain a wealth of experience as a research affiliate with the Center for Organization Research & Design. Ultimately it led to my first publication, a book chapter about social entrepreneurship that I co-authored with Dr. Gordon Shockley. My area of research looks at the connection that entrepreneurship has across the sectors in its commercial, social, and policy based forms. I specifically focus on finding market-based solutions for massive public problems.

     For my internship I chose something to strategically fulfill a specific gap on my resume. So the goals I look to achieve during this experience are very focused. First, the most specific goal is to gain experience designing a curriculum from the ground up for an institution of higher-education. My second goal is to translate leadership skills that I have gained over my career to successfully coordinate 15 sections of a college course. My third goal is to create a positive experience for the students and instructors that is both engaging and full of powerful resources. The specific desire for these goals is to gain a breadth of higher education teaching experience.

     I believe that my internship will give me an experience that I would not be able to gain otherwise. It will also help as I transition careers into academia because after all my goal is to become a professor. I enjoyed sharing a little about myself and look forward to reflecting about my internship experience in the coming weeks.