Happy in 3...2...
The purpose of our project is to find and explore what happiness means to people. Everyone has an idea of what happiness means to them and although many of the answers overlap, in the end everyone experiences joy in different ways. During this project we're going to try to experience different types of happiness and hopefully find what it means to us. I am very excited to see and try new things and getting to meet new people as well as get a glimpse of what their definition of happiness is. Personally for me interacting with new people on a regular basis is going to be a new experience but hopefully I can learn to be more comfortable around new faces.
Within the topic of happiness we have subtopics. My classmate Jessica and I have the subtopic of passion and purpose. To help us with these two very abstract ideas we reached out to Marcy Morrison, career coach and founder of her own organization Careers With Wings. Thanks to her great insight and experience we were able expand our ideas regarding the organizations we plan to work with. We have also had the chance to begin searching for our personal passions and aspirations. Overall we are grateful to have her lead us in directions we couldn't have thought of on our own. I truly believe we are on the right path to create a project that will help us not only as students but later on in our lives as well. |
First Glance
Probably what strikes me most about my workplace for our project is that we don't have a single place we have to go to everyday. Even though we have places we go to at least once a week we usually go to different places everyday so it does not get tiring. Because of the flexibility of our workplace, hours and activities I was pleasantly surprised to see how flexible all of my project members are. They always seem to be very enthusiastic and ready to take on any task. Everyday we try to help out in some way or to try to experience something new as well as interview anyone we find along the way about what happiness means to them. We are trying our best to fulfill our set calendar and for the most part we are able to do so but we handle the flexibility of times and tasks well. I am really looking forward to working with new organizations and projects that we have planned for the next weeks. Hopefully I can adjust well to all the future new surroundings.
Finding
So far in our externship we have slowly tried to incorporate ourselves with others. We are trying to meet new people and make some sort of impact even if it's small. Today we did a scavenger hunt with Q International. This school teaches English to students that come from all over the world. I had the chance to lead a group of four people from Saudi Arabia around museums in Balboa and get to know them. The language barrier wasn't that high because they all had a good enough understanding of the language but there was still a lot of confusion. At first I felt very awkward because I'm not used to speaking to strangers much less lead them somewhere. As time went on I became comfortable speaking to them and it was a lot easier for me to show them around and lead them to the right places explaining to them what their assignment for the scavenger hunt was. I used the few times I spoke to visitors at school as an example to explain things. Overall I think it was a good opportunity to work on my people skills and leadership.
Project over Internship
I am very happy that I chose to do a project with a group of people that I know will push me to try new things and step out of my comfort zone. The project has given me a chance to speak to new people and work on my communication skills. With a regular internship I would have to go to the exact same place and do the exact same things but with our project we have the opportunity to try new things and our surroundings and tasks are constantly changing. Most of all I am grateful that I have my friends with me because it is nice to know that if in the event that something goes wrong or I make a mistake, I have a group of people who will encourage me to keep my head up. In terms of time I feel like we will have enough time to complete our project because most of us are all doing different final products and we've been keeping up with what we should have done. I think our project is doing well and we are on the right track, hopefully we all finish strong.I am very happy that I chose to do a project with a group of people that I know will push me to try new things and step out of my comfort zone. The project has given me a chance to speak to new people and work on my communication skills. With a regular internship I would have to go to the exact same place and do the exact same things but with our project we have the opportunity to try new things and our surroundings and tasks are constantly changing. Most of all I am grateful that I have my friends with me because it is nice to know that if in the event that something goes wrong or I make a mistake, I have a group of people who will encourage me to keep my head up. In terms of time I feel like we will have enough time to complete our project because most of us are all doing different final products and we've been keeping up with what we should have done. I think our project is doing well and we are on the right track, hopefully we all finish strong.
This Is Us
Advocacy
As far as self advocacy goes in our project we have done a good job sharing our opinions and letting everyone be aware of how we would like things to be done. Usually when I have something that might be a good idea to do or add to our calendar the entire group is asked whether or not we feel it would benefit us. Depending on the answers we come to a conclusion as a whole group. We take in things like schedule,times and benefit as our main factors. There have been one or two occasions when one or two people feel like it is not useful and end up just agreeing to do it anyway because they are that could be something useful so it is better to go anyway. Basically we always make sure we are all on the same page because we know that's how a can have a successful project and everyone's opinions matter.
Product
Today I worked on our final product. We worked on two of the calendars for the make a wish foundation. The process for all the calendars are all different but the one I worked on today was for a girl who wants to go to Bora Bora. We came up with the idea to create a calendar out of a glass bottle that would have a piece of paper for each day. The first picture shows the document where I started collecting a lot of pictures of Bora Bora and things that interest the girl like her favorite artists and movies. The second picture is to show that we looked up facts about where she is going so that we could put it on the sheets of paper. Finally the last picture shows the idea of what we are trying to go for with the theme of a message in a bottle. The actual product is going to look much different but the concept is the same. For our other calendars we hope to make them into pop up calendars or at least have it have the feeling of an actual book.
May 26,2016
My mentor Marcy Morrison attended UCSD for her Masters in Public and International Affairs. She decided to make Careers With Wings by taking in her strengths to make as much positive change as she can. She also wanted to do something that she could do with her circumstances and personal life. She wanted a balanced life and to be able to take care of her children. She really believed that helping people find their own passions would create that change she wanted. It is something she really enjoys doing. When I met Marcy I realized how happy and enthusiastic she was about her work but mostly how sincere she was about loving her job. I learned that what I want my future career to be should be something I would do without pay. I also learned how important it is to meet as many people as I can and network. To create good relationships with people and to always pursue my passions even if I don't have the credentials.
This externship really helped me realize how important it is to do what I love and that even though I don't know what I want to do that there might be ways to combine my interests in my work. I also learned that the people we met were truly happy and content because they had followed their passions. I have learned that even if my skills or interests might not seem or be marketable they can definitely be turned to my favor. All I would have to do is find a job in which I could use the things I already know. If I don't do something I would do for free then I'm probably in the wrong job. It is better to explore my possibilities now than later facing a midlife crisis realizing I never did what I love and would make me happy.
This externship really helped me realize how important it is to do what I love and that even though I don't know what I want to do that there might be ways to combine my interests in my work. I also learned that the people we met were truly happy and content because they had followed their passions. I have learned that even if my skills or interests might not seem or be marketable they can definitely be turned to my favor. All I would have to do is find a job in which I could use the things I already know. If I don't do something I would do for free then I'm probably in the wrong job. It is better to explore my possibilities now than later facing a midlife crisis realizing I never did what I love and would make me happy.
Success
During our project a did a lot of different things and activities. The way I measured out success was based on how well fmwe felt after doing it and wether or not we accomplished as much as we possibly could. Most of it was how useful the activity was and how we felt about it. I think as age as contribution wise to our group I was the person who would try to be the most realistic as far as how much work we could get done that day and how beneficial the activities were as compared to the other ones. Basically I tried to keep us grounded and be as realistic as possible.
My work was definitely meanigful as far as my education goes because it gave me a chance to experience and observe different people in their jobs and how happy they seemed with their choices. I got to learn about different jobs and different careers. I also had the opportunity to speak with people and listen to their stories about how they got to be in that ceratain position. They had great advice to give to us from their own experince. We had the chance to help people in our community by doing simple things like countdown calendars go the Make a Wish Foundation and help students at QInternational. It was a small help to them but we like to think it helped them in some way. Doing small things for others can make a difference.
The idea for our project originated from a past project about happiness. We liked the idea they had and decided to try to do our own version. We really wanted to make it different so we decided to add volunteer work to our project because we knew that helping others is a huge part of finding your own happiness. In pairs a found common topics related to happiness like passion and purpose because a felt like that's what we wanted to learn about and created plans that a felt correlated to happiness in general and our subtopics.
While doing this project I learned a lot about work ethics. I learned up important it is to make sure you communicate your needs well to the ither person and to try to accommodate theirs. Also that you should try to create relationships with others to have a network of people who could potentially help you and you to them aswell. That you should contact people often and reply within a day. But most importantly you need to be reliable of you expect the other person to be as well.
My work was definitely meanigful as far as my education goes because it gave me a chance to experience and observe different people in their jobs and how happy they seemed with their choices. I got to learn about different jobs and different careers. I also had the opportunity to speak with people and listen to their stories about how they got to be in that ceratain position. They had great advice to give to us from their own experince. We had the chance to help people in our community by doing simple things like countdown calendars go the Make a Wish Foundation and help students at QInternational. It was a small help to them but we like to think it helped them in some way. Doing small things for others can make a difference.
The idea for our project originated from a past project about happiness. We liked the idea they had and decided to try to do our own version. We really wanted to make it different so we decided to add volunteer work to our project because we knew that helping others is a huge part of finding your own happiness. In pairs a found common topics related to happiness like passion and purpose because a felt like that's what we wanted to learn about and created plans that a felt correlated to happiness in general and our subtopics.
While doing this project I learned a lot about work ethics. I learned up important it is to make sure you communicate your needs well to the ither person and to try to accommodate theirs. Also that you should try to create relationships with others to have a network of people who could potentially help you and you to them aswell. That you should contact people often and reply within a day. But most importantly you need to be reliable of you expect the other person to be as well.
Learning:
While working on my project I learned to appreciate the fact that I get to do this project. A lot of the people a net told us how they wished they could've done a project like this when they were in high school and how we were learning new and important things most people out she don't learn. Most of the people we met were very happy with their job and comfortable speaking to others. I hope that I will also be able to speak comfortably with others and be able to find a job I love doing. Also many of the people just seems overall very enthusiastic and energetic. I hope I can learn to have that kind of attitude towards things in the future because it seems that's when people are the happiest. After our externship I realised that most of the people a met didn't exactly end up doing what they thought they wanted to be and that is more than okay. I already figured you needed to follow a plan and stick to it but they seemed comfortable with their jobs and grateful they ended with their current job. So I learned that even though I might not end up doing what I originally wanted to do I can still love my job.I also learned that whatever I want to do with my life has to be for myself and not others and that's very important. While doing my externship I became very curious about really how different people who were happy seemed compared to unhappy people. I wanted to know how it is that people just end up working for a place they never thought they would end up in but they love it anyway. I've come to wonder a lot about what I could do to become one of those people who love going to their job every morning and how they go about their day in a happy and positive way. As far as my life goes I think this internship has really shown me the importance of doing something I love and working doing something I wouldn't mind doing for free. What I learned about working with people outside of school is that there are so many people who are very willing to speak to you and work with you and all e had to do was ask. I also learned how important it is to fully communicate with the other person about what you actually want and what you are unable to do do.
This is picture of one of the blank pages of the scrapbook I am doing about our externship journey. I chose it because it shows how I have a lot of time for my future but it's up to me to fill it with happy and wonderful things. If I don't than the pages will remain blank and boring.
This is picture of one of the blank pages of the scrapbook I am doing about our externship journey. I chose it because it shows how I have a lot of time for my future but it's up to me to fill it with happy and wonderful things. If I don't than the pages will remain blank and boring.