Hi everyone!
My name is Shelby Thibodeaux and I am currently working on my second internship with Ogallala Commons.
I am from Houston, TX and currently living there. Six month ago I graduated top of my class from Texas Tech University. There I received two Bachelor of Art’s degrees. One from the College of Arts and Sciences in French, and my main focus was in my degree from the Honor’s College called Environment and the Humanities. This degree was focused on the hands-on study of the natural world, which included environmental sciences, English and writing, as well as philosophy and art. I would not have been able to graduate without an internship and after writing a thesis about my internship. Ogallala Commons was able to help me accomplish those things. My first internship with Ogallala Commons was through their “Stewarding Our Aquifer Initiative”. This is a digital campaign to connect people around the Great Plains region to learn and help with the conservation of the Ogallala Aquifer. This is accomplished through information and education, networking and connecting, and the love they all have for the Great Plains. My job was to do all of the start up research for the website, http://stewardingouraquifer.com/. When you visit the website you will see all of the data that I collected spread out all over the website.
My second internship has me doing lots of different things. The main focus is that I am conducting the first ever program evaluation of Ogallala Commons internship and apprenticeship program. I am c
contacting over 200 people to learn what they accomplished during their internships, where our alumnus are now, and how Ogallala Commons can stay in touch with them. The other parts of my internship include helping with the planning of the Intern Orientation as well as with the use of digital storytelling for benefit of Ogallala Commons. They sponsored me to go to a digital storytelling workshop with the Center for Digital Storytelling at Texas A&M University in College station, TX. You can see the video that I created for the “Stewarding Our Aquifer Initiative” at https://www.wevideo.com/hub/#media/ci/337319067. It was so successful that I will be teaching interns at orientation how they can create videos for their blogs as well as creating many other videos for Ogallala Commons to use.
I am excited to be working with Ogallala Commons again and can’t wait to see what I am able to accomplish with my second internship.
With Love,
Shelby Lynn Thibodeaux
