Learning Goals:
- Practice focus and concentration (Self-management)
- Practice “bouncing back” after adversity, mistakes, and failures (Self-management)
The first learning goal that I’ve been working on is focus and concentration, which although I selected before I started the internship, now looking back, I think this learning goal was definitely fitting for the internship because the working hours that we were given for this internship were substantially longer working blocks than the previous medical internship. For back-stage, we had to work around 6 hours each time, and for front stage, it could range anywhere from 4-5 hours. So at this internship, because I was working directly with the customers, it was important for me to always be alert because I never knew whenever a customer would come up and ask questions, and it would reflect badly on the institution if their workers (me) was not doing their job, or slacking off. The second learning goal that I chose was because that’s also something that I was really nervous about, similarly to my first internship. In general I’m someone who gets really embarrassed by mistakes, and I felt as if by working at an internship, those mistakes would only be magnified because the scale of the system in which I was working in was larger and would affect more people than just myself. However, I think that the way that the mentors trained me for making mistakes during this internship was a lot better than the previous internship I was at because it felt like at this internship, the mentors understood that it was only natural for their workers, not just their interns, to make mistakes. so they told us beforehand that it was okay if we didn’t know something, we should just tell the customer to wait and request help from one of the more veteran employees that knew the answer. It also helped a lot that they had a lot of new college interns that they were training, so it felt like I wasn’t the only one who was unsure of what to do. They were very supportive with teaching all the new interns and made an environment where we felt comfortable to ask questions when we didn’t know, instead of trying to figure out something by ourselves and possibly making a mistake as a result.
An impactful moment and Weiwuying for me was this one day where they were training a lot of new college interns (I didn’t know yet at the time), and so in the lobby where we were supposed to meet, there were a lot of other interns. When a mentor came to ask for the new interns who were supposed to work at Recital Hall that day to follow her, I didn’t follow because I thought she only meant the college interns that I saw at the lobby. But then after a few minutes of no mentors coming to pick me up from the lobby, I realized that I probably should have followed them and that I had made a mistake. So I remembered what they had said during the orientation, which was to message them if anything happens or if someone isn’t there to pick us up. So I sent a message on Line, and within less than a minute, a mentor had replied to me and was coming to pick me up. I was still debating on what to reply to the chat message when one of the mentors arrived at the lobby to take me to the Recital Hall. I was really surprised not only because of the speed at which she replied and came to meet me, but also the fact that it wasn’t some random employee or staff member that they had sent to pick me up, rather it was one of the higher up administration mentors that I had met on the day of the orientation. I was really surprised that they cared enough to come pick me up themselves even though it might’ve been a big inconvenience for them, because I’m sure they had better things to do/take care of, but they still made the effort to come pick up some lost high school intern. In that moment, I was just struck by how genuine the staff/mentors were and really impressed by the level of organization that they ran on in order to know exactly where everyone is at all times and to check who is supposed to pick up the interns on such a short notice. Then as we were walking up to the Recital Hall and even after we arrived, she didn’t seem angry, but was really receptive and enthusiastic to answer my questions about why she decided to work here, her past jobs, her experiences in the US, what she studied at school, etc. I think the same goes for a lot of the mentors and staff that I talked to throughout my time there. Their willingness to have a conversation with me and to answer my endless questions about their lives was just another indicator of their patience and ability to communicate/understand their their employees/interns.
This internship has influenced how and what I perceive myself to be doing after high school because I would have never really considered doing something like working in a museum because I don’t consider myself to be very competent or knowledgeable in that area, but after working here, I think I realized that some aspects of working in a cultural/arts center like this doesn’t require me to be very knowledgable on the work itself, but I could work reception or administration and still be able to be close to the art without needing to know absolutely everything about it. I would say that this internship has sparked my interest in doing some sort of internship like this again in college because I think being involved in this kind of community was really interesting and rewarding for me, but I don’t think it’s necessarily going to become my career path. However, I’m 90% sure that I’m going to find some kind of work like this in college to pass the time or to earn some income or to just do it for fun, if time allows, because I genuinely enjoyed my time here so I think perhaps being in an English environment where I can more confidently handle questions and communicate might only further that enjoyment. I’m not really sure how different a US culture center’s experience is from here at WeiWuYing, but I want to find out.
From this internship, I think I learned how important it is to be able to keep my professionalism throughout the time that I’m working. For example, one time we had a really rude customer that kept complaining about everything the staff did, kept cutting off the staff anytime someone tried to reply/answer his questions, didn’t listen to what we said, etc. I was starting to get the urge to roll my eyes because I was so frustrated with him and how he was treating everyone at the reception, but then my mentor who was beside me and also kept getting cut off by the guy, was able to remain calm despite it all. Essentially the customer wanted to mail something to someone using WeiWuYing’s reception desk (which isn’t a service that they offer), but at the same time complain about every little thing he felt like was wrong about WeiWuYing. Since the customer didn’t want to listen to any staff, my mentor just nodded a lot and accepted what he said even when he kept cutting everybody off and eventually the guy left. I think to be able to remain level headed as to not further worsen the problem was really smart and I have no idea how my mentor was able to stay calm during it, but then it also taught me that I also need to beware of separating my own feelings from my job because my actions are going to affect the institution, so I can’t get frustrated or angry at the customers, I need to treat them all with the same amount of respect and amicability.
One insight that I gained from talking with all the different mentors and staff that I worked with is that there are so many different paths you can take to end up where you are. My favorite part of working the internship there was that in the times where there weren’t any customers, or all the people were inside the concert halls, so we could sit down was that in that time space, I could talk to my mentors about their own lives. It was really unexpected for me to learn about how much their paths differed to each other in coming to work here at WeiWuYing, and how different their lives were in terms of interests and other jobs. It shed a whole new light on me for what I felt like I could do and the amount of possibilities out there for me after listening to them because I think often, this notion of following a singular path – going to college for a major, following that major in grad school, getting a job in that field – is emphasized, that I forgot how much else you could be/do until I had listened to them. Some of them were music majors, dancers, (still) work as administration for the Marriott Hotel, are part of LGBTQ Hotlines Organizations, etc. Everything they do is really diverse and I think they just made me realize that I won’t be “tied down” to sticking to a path, that I still have a lot of choices and opportunities to pursue my hobbies.