Winter Break Internship

Over the course of winter break I stayed busy, working hard on a few projects. I was also able to attend the staff retreat conference for a week in Washington DC.

On my first project, I had to view over 100 VAMC’s Facebook pages and collect data, checking on whether their posts were getting engagements, how often they were posting, and other data like that. On the second project I had to collect similar data and work with averages for the month of November. I had to compile my data in several spreadsheets and input them into a PowerPoint. After some analysis, I created recommendations on how to better engage through social media, and created a posting schedule for the VAMC’s posts for Facebook and Twitter. I was then able to present my findings and my pitch at a meeting in DC. My third project was to verify five communication points for all the VAMCs; I had to call over 140 locations and view their individual websites to do this project.

My trip to DC was a wonderful experience. I was able to sit in on many presentations and several meetings. I went in for the normal 8am-5pm shift and even had team excursions after work. I am so thankful for Blake, Monica, and Jeff’s hard work to get me there. I learned so many things and was invited to webinars, trainings, and another online internship!

I am finishing up my third project and will be attending the Health content meeting for the upcoming semester. I will also be creating a PowerPoint on how to better communicate with interns and how to expand the program.

I am very grateful for everything this week, and will never forget this experience.

Week 15 Internship

This week has been a long and stressful week, between my check up project with the VA and my school finals, but everything worked out in the end and I got everything completed and submitted on time.

This week’s staff meeting was moved so I was unable to attend but spent several days working on my Digital media checkup project.

I am still waiting to book the hotel; I need one more person to reach out to me when everything is official and set to go. I am super excited to go to the conference in January and I appreciate David’s constant work to help me be able to attend.

I also volunteered for another digital media project like the check up but slightly different. So, I look forward to doing that over Christmas break. It has several requirements that I meet so I can actually do it.

Week 14 Internship

This week has been super busy for me between the internship and class work, but some how it is all coming along.

I was able to attend the meeting and get the minutes sent out on time. This week’s meeting discussed a new organization strategy other than Trello and Benefit plans they could get through their job.

I also started working on the digital check up project and got the due date for that, which will be next week. It matches up with Finals nicely. All I am doing is going to all of the Facebook pages , which there is one for each facility, and collecting data for one month and scoring each aspect. After I collect the data, I input and submit the spread sheet to Blake.

I submitted my vendorization form last week, but should be hearing back with in the next few days about booking my hotel room for the January DC conference. They scheduled the Town Hall meeting during the days I will be there, so I get to meet everyone. During this trip, I will also work out a new meeting/huddle to attend for next semester.

I am working hard on the projects given to me and I cannot wait until the conference. I appreciate that everyone is so easy to work with /for and the help I am getting to make the trip possible.

Week 13

This week was a short week for everyone, myself being on Thanksgiving break, and my VA supervisor took the week off for the same reasons. I wasn’t able to attend the weekly meeting so I didn’t have the chance to do the minutes. I sent over the final evaluation forms to be filled out, and also sent over my vendorization form so I can attend the meetings in January.

I am very excited to be given the opportunity to go and I appreciate David working hard to get everything in order to make that possible.

Blake sent out the instructions for the project I signed up for and I will be starting this week on getting it done as soon as possible. Blake also sent out a new project, but I had to refuse because my skill set would not have been an Asset to that particular project.

I am excited to see what comes next.

Internship Week 12

This week has been an exciting and busy week for my internship. I started the week with a group meeting for a project I signed up for with Blake and other volunteers. I was able to select the Facebook aspect of the project and will handle data research and input into their system to help them understand current posting habits on all of the facility pages.

Then I was able to attend the staff meeting and submit the minutes for on time. Here we went through a new way of filing information on their stored drive. We also talked about travel plans and I was made aware that I was able to attend the trip in January. I worked closely with David and Suzanna who worked with Monica, in order to make it possible for me to attend and pay for the hotel room that I will stay at. I appreciate their help through the process and look forward to the trip.

I also had another project due on Wednesday to Blake. He needed the interns to do research on when the best time is to post on social media pages. It was fascinating to learn that there is better times for certain companies to post certain topics at certain times to boost the viewing levels. We had to find data and summarize and submit to Blake so he can review and learn as well.

This week has been fun and informative in may aspects, whether it was organization ideas or about the research we did. I am looking forward to the Facebook project with Blake and to see how the statistics I gather will compare to their other social media pages.

Internship Week 10

This week the meeting went on without any issues, we discussed more of the weekly report (which was cancelled last week), as well as leadership charts, Veterans Day, and travel plans, along with the usual round robin discussion.

The weekly report was discussed briefly; they were all included on a list, and they each voted for what they thought the best ideas would better. Suzanna will pick the best and it will be discussed at a later day.

Travel plans were discussed for January 6th through 17th, I reached out to David about me being able to join in on the meetings for the first week. David thought that would be a good idea and will look into it for me. I am very appreciative that David is so nice; the atmosphere is very open and inclusive and I genuinely enjoy working on things for them.

For Veteran’s Day, We went around and spoke about all the veterans in our lives. They asked me to submit my family members to their “veteran of the day” social media campaign.

Suzanna handed out leadership charts, to make sure everyone knows their audience and knows the tiers of the organization. The charts are extremely helpful for everyone in the organization.

Internship Week 9

This week in my internship was different because my direct boss was still at a conference and many others were preparing for events. So the meeting was over about ten minutes early.

I was able to attend the meeting and take the minutes, I submitted them to both David and Blake who are both my lead contacts. I was unable to attend a video conference via skype that was planned because of class on Wednesday and I was actually sad because I was looking forward to seeing everyones actual faces, but I am sure there will be more opportunities for this in the future.

This week’s meeting was fun because there was an intern attending from Florida. She was visiting the office, and we got to hear what she does and her background. We went round robin for most of the meeting discussing who everyone was and what they do.

The two presentations on the weekly briefing and organization of shared drive were rescheduled to next week. But, we did discuss the VA’s plans for Veterans Day and the trip where everyone is going to DC in December. I wanted to see if I could possibly go, but they don’t know dates yet so I’ll wait and find out more at the next meeting.

Week 7 Internship

This week we discussed the purpose of the weekly staff meeting, which is to be an informational meeting that promotes cohesion across all team members, regardless of their primary duty.

We discussed some rules to a beneficial round robin and how to be respectful to others times during the round robin.

Also this week the interns participated in a survey with a 24 hour deadline on how the VHA can stream line and enhance communications between the team and the interns.

Also this week I handed in my midterm survey, which tells the school about my experience thus far in the year. I am enjoying my time with the VHA and I love everyone on the team. I have been successfully been able to attend meetings and submitted minutes while learning about the organization. I hope to be apart of more projects in the near future. I can see myself working on a team like this for my career.