It is on this cold last Sunday morning of October that I am writing this entry on my blog. In the past week, Boston has seen a severe and sudden decrease in temperatures - so wrapped up in blankets with a cuppa with me I am looking back at the past two weeks.
When I last talked to you, my supervisor and I just decided of the new goals for the next coming months. Since then a lot has been happening, putting my public speaking, Information Technology, and reactiveness at the test. Over the first few months of my internship I did meet with employers, however, on October 17th, my supervisor and I received a delegation of 33 employers on campus. When such delegation comes on campus, it is our responsibility to make sure that they have the opportunity to meet the faculty/ staff members they will work with following their visit on campus. This delegation coming on campus was challenging as they did not all speak English fluently. This required being more open and more attentive to their questions. That third week of October I also met with other employers promoting their opportunities on campus with student groups. We facilitated two info sessions and each was attended by over a hundred students.
Both visits, even though similar were really different as they were for two different entities, one was focusing on Northeastern proving information to employers and the other employers sharing their job opportunities to students.
Both events gave me the chance to strengthen my networking skills and ability to adapt to different types of the audience but also gave the opportunity to develop my knowledge on the different culture ethics and expectations.
Furthermore, in the past week I helped my supervisor with her trip visit preparation - focusing on the presentation she will be giving to potential new employers for Northeastern co-op students in South Africa. In collaboration with another intern I have been creating a slide deck that she will be able to use with strong selling point and information. This was a task that gave the chance to analyze my knowledge and understanding of the university system. It was great to see that I was able to create those slides without major difficulties and also realized that once you know a topic, summarizing it in a couple of points isn't too difficult.
As you know by now, I have been spending a couple of hours a month focusing on developing my leadership skills, thus to be able in the future to progress towards a leadership position in a timely manner. This week my leadership class was on being able to share information with an 'employee' that would potentially lead to conflict or difficult decision. I had the chance to do this role play with the professor. He decided to put my in difficult situations that he thought I will encounter later on in my career. This role play was a really good learning opportunity; even though fictional those scenarios were real life examples. It is said that gender and inequality in the workplace are being reduced, we should always keep in mind that not everybody will agree with it and that women in a leadership position will have to face the toughness of male 'superiority'.
As you all know, since the beginning of August I was covering the front desk for certain hours of the week, making my schedule really busy, with increased responsibilities but also in some situations increasing the stress of meeting a deadline. I am really pleased to report that a new staff member is starting tomorrow! As a result, my time at the front desk is coming to an end after this week as I will be sharing the responsibilities of training him. Despite being an unexpected responsibility and assignment working at the front desk gave me the experience and exposure of a fast-paced in person work environment.
Before finishing this blog, I would like to apologize for the lack of Vlogs this week, however, the past two weeks have been challenging on a personal level, and I wasn't seeing myself vlogging those private moments.
See you soon
AlexandraPS: Feel free to check my social media
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