INTERNSHIP with Tandem, Partners in Early Learning
For my internship I am working with Tandem at 1330 Broadway in Downtown Oakland. My supervisor is Crystal Sand and with her i am helping her enter surveys to the computer, organizing events, making phone calls and other office work.
Date Hours
4/9/2018 2
4/11/2018 4
4/18/2018 4
4/23/2018 3
4/25/2018 4
4/30/2018 4
Journal Entry:
April 9, 2018
Today is my first day working with Tandem (Partners In Early Learning) as their intern. What i did today was help them from 3pm - 5pm with setting up materials for a learning event they’re holding this week. I had to cut book covers in to long scraps for the kids to be able to create art with them. After all the tideos cutting, I put together in zip-locks the papers, glue and scrap paper for the kids to create the art on.
April 11, 2018
Today from 1pm - 5pm I had to count the amount of books they have in their small library. Each shelf was separated by language and reading levels. On each of the different sections i wrote the amount of books there were on a sticky note. While i was counting the books I had to be on the look out for three certain books; which I had only found two out of the three. I counted nearly over 500 books; however I took the longest trying to locate the last book they asked me to find by going over each shelf and each section multiple times only to find out that it did not matter if the book was not there.
April 18, 2018
Tandem hosts some Learning events for young student from ages 0 - 5, teachers, TA, ect to incorporate new learning styles in their curriculum. After each of these events they pass out a survey where the event is evaluated by the adults who attended. Today from 1pm - 5pm I had to enter the survey data on to google sheets. There were about 150 filled out surveys total the consists with the questions of: How helpful the workshop was, If they learned any new information, What languages they attended for, What their ethnicity is, What the age of the kids are, and more. It took me the full 5 hours with a 5 minute bathroom break to enter all the data. It was kind of difficult at first because I did not know how to use google sheets and the shortcuts within it so for the first two sets of surveys I was really slow. Then, I got the hang of it and was able to enter the data quicker. It was a very monotonous process but it was good to learn how office work usually is.
April 23, 2018
Today at Tandem I entered survey data once again. After I was done, my supervisors had me make phone calls to people to confirm the RSVP to an event Tandem is putting on in Children’s Fairyland. My ability to speak Spanish came in very handy with this task because the majority of the phone calls I had to make were to native Spanish speakers. I am a very nervous and awkward person so the first few phone calls I mumbled and mispronounced some words and continuously had to repeat myself. After the 10th phone call I was comfortable and all the rest of the phone calls went smoothly. As I was making the phone calls I had to mark down whether they said yes, no or if i had to leave a message. This was all to see and keep track of how many tickets Tandem has to have for this event at Fairyland.
April 25, 2018
Today i did some mindless work for setting up the needed materials for Family Literacy day in Fairyland this Friday. I proofread the English and Spanish version of the brochures. When they were printed I had to fold over 300 of the brochures. After I organized all the flyers/brochures, i had to put together about 200 booklets so that the children can make their own book with at the event. As simple as the act of folding papers in half and tying it together with a string is; the task was very tiring and was really hard to keep focused/motivated. After the long mundane hours of folding and putting booklets together passed, i was given another task to put stickers of the company on each of the new book the have received through packaging. There were three big boxes full of children's books.
April 30, 2018
Today is my last working with Tandem. I once again did survey entries on an excel sheet for a workshop that one of my leaders took on. I also helped them organize their books in their library alphabetically and by language for them. It was very stressful for me but i learned how to manage it and make it easier for myself by first separating them into different categories. My last task here was to help them type out and print flyers for their next upcoming event.
Closing Report
For my internship I worked with Tandem, Partners in Early Learning. Here at Tandem it is the goal to help families with children from ages 0 through 14 who are in need of a better education to provide them tools and workshops for their children and for themselves to learn skills. The skills I have used in this internship with Tandem were, task managing, time managing, organization, and communicative skills. For task managing I learned how to prioritize and pick the right solutions. For example, when I was entering the survey information on the excel sheets, I messed up a good half of it by typing in the wrong column for one of the surveys and going on from there. Of course I had to go back and re do it but I did not know where to start that so I went back on the edit history to figure that out. In doing so I learned that I need to be patient when completing tasks and do it right the first time than having to do it again. I had to learn how to manage my time because I had to bus to and back from Tandem. I was scheduled to come in at 1pm - 5pm every Monday and Wednesday. For those two days of the week I had to leave school early and estimate the amount of time it would take me to grab lunch and then bus to Tandem. With that I learned better how to manage and organize my time and had a sense how it would be for when I get a real job. At Tandem I did a lot of organizing in which I definitely needed help in exercising that skill. My supervisors gave me very much so mundane tasks. For example organizing flyers and peres was a very tedious job. With this I learned that with out organization it will actually be much harder to accomplish future task because they all rely on the base of being organized. One of the obstacles I faced while working with Tandem was actually setting the hours and days I would come in. For that I had to make a phone call to Crystal but we both found ourselves busy at the times the other was free.I am initially a very shy person despite whether it is behind a screen or not. So, in the beginning it was hard to get in contact with her, because either her or I would forget to respond the emails. At first I honestly had no idea what to expect because I didn't even know what Tandem was, so I went in to this internship thinking that the majority of the tasks they would have me do was just going to be the basic boring office work. The experience was mainly office work but it also had some crafts and arts to it which was entertaining to pass the hours. In working with Tandem I have learned the skills of task and time managing, organization, and communicative skills.