As my time as an Ogallala Common intern comes to a close, I can’t help but to feel so grateful for this whole experience. This internship did so much more than just simply give me a job to do over the summer. Working through the City has allowed me to expand my professional skills and network. It has also taught me so much about the community I grew up in as well as allowed me to get involved like never before. Being an intern has brought many successes, a few challenges, and a whole lot of growth.
Interning with the City brought me so many opportunities to get involved around the community. I spent the majority of my time with the City’s Recreation Department, where I had such a good experience. I spent a lot of my time working at baseball games as well as coaching T-Ball and Machine Pitch. It was such a blast spending my days at the baseball field and with the kids. Other activities I got to be a part of with recreation included a PGC basketball camp, crafting with kids at the county fair, and general office and professional work. I also got to spend a little bit of my time with the Chamber of Commerce where I attended a Chamber meeting, helped with a few Hot Dog Wednesdays, and also helped with this year’s Dandelion Daze. This allowed for even more networking and an inside look at some of the communities local businesses. Whenever I wasn’t with the Recreation Department or the Chamber, I could be found all around town. I helped with several events including Vacation Bible School, Phillips County Family and Education Services camp, 4-H camp, and the community concession stands at the county fair.
It was absolutely wonderful to have the opportunity to be so involved with many different activities and events around the community. While I have lived here nearly my whole life, I was able to learn so much about my community that I never knew about before. Being directly involved in so many different things was a great learning opportunity and was so cool to experience. However, the abundance of opportunity also came with its challenges. It could get somewhat difficult at times to adjust to working on different tasks with different people all the time. It could also become challenging to juggle all the various opportunities and deal with scheduling even though it could be very flexible at times. Overall, the successes and experience gained completely outweigh these challenges.
At the Intern Orientation in Dumas, Texas which took place at the beginning of my internship, I created three goals for myself. These include one communication goal, one leadership goal, and one professional networking expansion goal. Ogallala Commons certainly sets up their interns to find success in achieving their goals. There are multiple extra requirements to complete an internship outside of working hours. Interns must complete a total of five blogs, two zoom calls, and a Harvesting Ceremony. An intern can find improvement their communication skills, leadership skills, and their professional network in these extra requirements alone. My internship helped me specifically achieve my goals in many ways as well. As I will aspire to be a coach someday, the opportunities I had to coach kids in Machine Pitch and T-Ball as well as working with kids in various other settings improved my leadership skills tremendously. I was able to achieve my professional networking goal through the opportunity to help with a multitude of organizations and events around town under different people. I also got to meet and network with many professional figures through various meetings and events. My busy schedule also required a lot of communication to run smoothly. While I still believe I can improve in this area, I do believe I showed a lot of growth in my communication.
