Week 3: Self-Advocacy in Times of Change
Tuesday — June 5, 2018
My one word checkout for today would be fast. We had one meeting about Alumni Sponsorship relationships. It lasted about three hours. I learned about these books in major cities called book of lists , 2018 which contain point of contacts and the who’s who of every city. Afterwards, we spent the day clearing out our old facility in a UCF building.
June 6–8, 2018
The end of the week was a bit frustrating. With new management and fiscal budgets comes lots of uncontrollable changes. If you are experiencing this I think the best thing you can do is remember your priorities so that they can be considered and translated into whichever direction your organization is going. In this change that StarterStudio is experiencing, Casey will be taking more responsibility of my direction, as she has past experience of the company and knows the direction it is taking. I knew that my learning experiencing was not a top priority considering the obligations my organization has to meet with the city and other legalities of being a merging non-profit organization. There is currently a lot of weight to be pulled, but I have been adamant in regards to maintaining the educational components to utilize throughout this experience. So with all the tasks that needed to be handled, I told them to give me the ones that could be a learning experience that one of the administrators would be willing to bear walking me through, otherwise it made no sense for me to do it (in regards to the purpose of my internship). Having the leverage of the Tech Fellows contract helped as well, because sometimes I felt my words weren’t being taken seriously. The research paper and contract was an example to management that I needed materially that was academically and professionally constructive to be produced by the end of my internship. I had a meeting with our new manager David, Friday, where we discussed the expectations of the fellowship based on what our former manager Dayle had outlined with me. We agreed that moving forward, I would have more academic opportunities, like shadowing different lead professions (marketing, web management, and operations), days solely dedicated to developing my research paper and blogs, as well as, opportunities to handle out of office meeting and council meetings.
Definitely, moving forward I have learned that as opposed to coming in at 11 AM until 7 PM, I’d much rather come from 8 AM-4 PM. Because, the noon is filled with purposed and lengthy meetings that get in the way of informal communication. I also realized that attitude and conscientiousness are so important. Because, attitude helps control your message in times of meeting, negotiations, and even in situations where you cannot control how you will need to add value to a company. Conscientiousness keeps you more purpose oriented. It helps you to consider your goals and how they align with your organizations, as well as, helps to deliver your message.
