As the summer starts to come to an end, along with my internship, I can’t believe how fast the summer has flown by. It feels like just last week that I was attending orientation, learning how to be an intern and creating personal goals for my summer internship. There where three goals that I created, first, I wanted to become better at starting conversations with people I didn’t know. Second, I wanted to become more organized in my work and personal life. Thirdly and finally, I wanted to become better at taking control of my work life, taking the needed initiative. I noticed that these areas needed work at orientation. At orientation I had trouble talking to all the new people and I only talked to the people I had come with. I have always been extraordinarily shy with new people and I decided that I wanted to become better at talking to people I didn’t know. For my second goal, when I was at orientation I was not an organized person. At all. None of my notes were organized and my bag of clothes certainly wasn’t. As I was trying to keep my life together I realized that I definitely needed to become more organized if I was going to survive college. For my final goal I wanted to become better at taking initiative, this was because at orientation I followed people around, I never did anything of my own free will, something I wanted to change.
Fortunately, my internship at the local farmers market helped me achieve all these goals. Since I was working for the market I had to talk to all the vendors and help them set up their booths. This caused me to have to talk to all the vendors. This slowly helped me to come out of my shell and become more comfortable talking to people. While I have become better at talking to people I am still not comfortable in this situation. Thanks to the market though I am now able to talk in a professional manor to people even if I don’t know who they are yet. The market helped with my organization by teaching me how to keep items together and in their specific spot. This has helped immensely, especially after I forgot my nametag at home. For the market internship I am required to take on a personal project, one that with help improve the market. I chose to update and improve the market’s website, this was to help direct traffic to the market and make the website easier to navigate. This project was designed in a way that I was on my own, with little to no outside help or direction, teaching me to work by taking my own initiative.
Working at the Teller County Farmers Market has been a phenomenal experience and one I won’t soon forget. I have worked with amazing people and learned so many things. From setting up the market to tearing down the market, I have seen how the market runs from the inside. From the website to the Instagram account I have worked to draw people to our market, successfully gaining a following for the market as well. From collecting food for the food rescue to seeing the thankful results of the generously donated food. This summer has been one of the best I have ever experienced, and it has taught me much. Thank you for the opportunity to work with these amazing people.
