By Abraham Powery
My time as an intern in the Youth Services Unit has been defined by creativity and ideas from the very beginning. Starting off in a role that had much more administrative weight than I had ever had the responsibility of tackling before was initially a very daunting endeavor, and to an extent that same fresh anxiety still remains even as I write this, but what I can say has certainly changed is my initial view on how much I would’ve learned and how much enjoyment I derived from what I’ve been able to accomplish here. The entire established team here at the YSU has been warm, welcoming and engaging from the very first day even in times when I felt like I wasn’t capable of pulling my own weight.
Most of my duties were relatively small in scale, placing me in familiar roles such as overseeing kids for summer camp, basic schedule management and collaboration with fellow interns. Beyond that however, my time here also introduced me to unfamiliar fields such as the importance of advertisement and outreach, basic graphic design, and conceptualizing my own event. The latter was especially foreign to me, given the level of preparation and planning that I had not expected would go into something that was relatively small in scale, though it was equal parts an enlightening and exciting experience nonetheless. Being able to apply my previous experiences in fields that I had initially considered to be otherwise unrelated to my internship was a pleasant surprise, having been able to combine my normally more hands-on approach to events with my newly acquired knowledge of administrative handling.
Overall, my internship has introduced me to key concepts that will no doubt become invaluable in my future professional endeavors, learned in an atmosphere that has been enlightening, friendly and encouraging to individuals who have the drive and passion to make change a reality.
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