Photo Essay

The B1 is the worst transportation I have used in my life! Sometimes I had to wait in  the bus top over 20 minutes and I got to internship very late. But, I never had a problem with my supervisor because I got to internship a little late.

My endless duty! I did this every single day during internship, this were for the next day's lunch service for the seniors that paid $1 for their lunch everyday. Most of my time was spent on doing this silverwear.

Shredding papers was very fun! I had to check a huge cabinet full of papers from 1990s to 2011. I shredded papers from 1990s until 2004. Most of the papers were from activities, lunch, and some other things that were not important anymore.

 This was a huge challenge! Alphabetizing all this participants emergency contact cards, it was really boring and I really hate it but it was my job to finish alphabetizing and I finally did! 

I entered a thousand participant forms into the computer system, sometimes I disliked doing this because the handwriting  

was very hard to read. I noticed that JASA is a Jewish Senior Center but most of the seniors that go there are Russians.

Karen (right) was my Internship Supervisor and Marina (left) is Karen's co-worker. 

This is the Bingo class which happens every Thursday afternoon. 

Me and Karen on the day before Internship ended. 

Final Reflection

My main goal was to complete my internship hours before internship weeks ended and I did achieve my goal, I did about 6 more hours than what I was suppose to do. After the last 10 weeks I was able to experience life outside school- its very overwhelming and requires commitment. My supervisor was very nice and my relationship with her made me notice that if you want someone to take your job seriously you need to be a hard working employee or volunteer. First I was very freaked out about working at a senior center but once I was working there, I didn't work with seniors at all, I helped with the setting up and things like that. The professional world can be very stressing if you don't stick to it or aren't mature enough to handle things well. Unfortunately my thoughts about college haven't change after internship because I was doing things that were easy to do. The biggest challenge was not being able to go to internship sometimes because of personal reasons but I made up my hours during the spring break.

If I were to start a brand new internship, I would make sure that it has more challenges for me to gain experience and try to do an internship that I would really enjoy doing. A new intern at JASA has to be friendly, hard working and needs to have a lot of patience. I will really miss hearing Karen argue with staff members when it was time to do the food ordering. 

Thank You Letter

May 23, 2012

Dear Karen,

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for being such a wonderful internship supervisor. You really taught me a great deal about being a project director.  Working with seniors is not an easy task but I was able to see you do it every day. Twenty years is a long time! I’m impressed.

This internship truly fulfilled my expectations. You and JASA’s staff members really made me feel comfortable at Shorefront all the time. You also taught about how to work with others. For example, listening to you argue with Websther, Marina, and Mark taught me that even if you have spent a lifetime at a job, you still have to work hard to resolve difficult issues at your job. I admire you so much because you care for people and especially the seniors.  I would be very upset if the government ever decided to close JASA down.

  

Even though we didn’t have so much time to interact, I still learned many things from your background. For example, when I asked you a thousand questions at the interview, I learned so much about how you used your communication and networking skills to get a great job.  I hope that you never change and decide to take an International High School intern next year.

Thank you for providing me the chance to serve the elderly and help make JASA a great place. I really appreciate it.

Best regards,

Gladys Torres

New Vocabulary

Advisor - Supervisor
The person who you can turn to whenever you need help at internship. 

She is lucky enough to have a supervisor that understands her situation. 

Appropriate - Apropiado
Something that is adequate for an occasion or an activity.
Her schedule was appropriate for her situation.

Attitude - Actitud
Your body posture defining your emotions.
He was fired from his internship because he was always giving his supervisor an attitude.

Colleague - Colega

A partner in your profession. 

All Bridges' teachers are colleagues. 

Co-worker - Compañero de trabajo
A person working in the same site as you. 
Marina is Karen's co-worker at JASA.

Criticism - Critica
People giving feedback about somebody else's work.
Hearing criticism is a good way to improve your work.

Discrimination - Discriminacion
Talking bad or making a thread against a certain group of people.
Discrimination is a big issue in the United States.

Duty - Deber
The tasks you need to finish at work or school.

My number one duty is to complete my internship hours before the deadline. 

Employee - Empleado

A person who works for another person. 

He was able to become an employee at his internship site. 

Evaluation - Evaluacion
Someone checking how well or bad you do at work.
Her supervisor has done several evaluations to others at her work.

Flexible - Flexible
Something that can be changed constantly.
My schedule is very flexible every week.

Harassment - Acoso

To bother or touch another inappropriately very often.
My internship place is a harassment-free area. 

Recommendation - Recomendacion
A representation in favor of a person.
A letter of recommendation is required at a job interview.

Reference - Referencia

Something addressing where you obtained information from.

Ms. Kara always makes us do a reference page in most projects.

Salary - Salario
The amount of money you get paid at your job. 

A person who goes to college has a better salary than a person that doesn't attend college.