Internship

My internship was for the TRiO program at the University of South Carolina Lancaster.  The internship contact, and site coordinator was Andrea Campbell.  She was also the SME for opportunity scholars program.  I created a PowerPoint module, 2 flyers, and would have done an additional PowerPoint as well if not for lack of contact from the person over that department of TRiO.  I also updated and verified the information on the TRiO webpage.  This was done through the webmaster Antonia Mackey.  The first meeting with Andrea Campbell laid out what would be accomplishable in 8 weeks.  A contract was drawn and signed.  My internship began according to the schedule, but I hadn’t received the analysis data from them.  I took another two weeks to get the opportunity scholars program data.  Meantime I created the Style Guide and Job aid for both the program and a general one for TRiO.  I went ahead and worked on the opportunity scholars program brochure and upward-bound-brochure.  Once the data was in for opportunity scholars’ program came in I realized that the original plan to do a PowerPoint for early start which is part of opportunity scholars program and for opportunity scholars program the data indicated that it wasn’t needed.  I proposed to make a PowerPoint for the upward bound program which is another TRiO program that would be a more effective use of my time and more beneficial to TRiO.  Andrea agreed and the Trio Contract Shihyukuo.docx was updated and signed.  I quickly started working on OSP PowerePoint.pptx.  We will be doing a some new photos when the photographer we used is available Andrea wanted to retake the ones in her office and is reworking some of the talking points.  Due to this being a federally funded program certain wording is needed.  Unfortunately, Andrea and I were never able to get the upward bound program analysis data so I wasn’t able to create the PowerPoint.  The head of the upward bound program did agree that he would love for me to built something for the program, but the upward-bound-brochure needs updated pictures the ones used are from the Facebook page for the program before COVID. 

This internship taught me a lot about being flexible and willing to change the plan but still get the work done.  It was also a learning experience to see data that for the first time indicated that I shouldn’t make a project and then immediately sharing that with the client and asking which of the items we had ruled out at the beginning would be the next top priority to put into action.  It taught me to work with the contact but reach out if information isn’t available to the original source to see if I could have better luck with the SME for the upward bound program.  Andrea and the opportunity scholars program taught me a lot about how much more complicated it is when certain wording and terminology needs to be used.