Hi My name is Rola Cao, a rising-sophmore student from Macalester College and I am the Curriculum and Training Intern at Spark-Y in summer of 2022. My internship lasted 11 weeks from end of May to mid-August and it is my first ever in-person full-time internship.
Internship Overview
During my internship, I provided and supervised 12 high school youth with hands-on experiences that lead to empowerment 3+ days a week. On the past 6 professional development days, I developed, planned, and facilitated activities for Spark-Y Summer Annual Internship that include: career exploration, resume writing, leadership skills, career readiness for high school + aged youth.
Besides my role in summer internship planning, I was also on the team of impact measurement and curriculum design. With my ArcGIS cartography skills, I created an impact map to visualize the range of Spark-Y programs throughout St. Paul, Minneapolis, and greater Twin Cities area. Moreover, during the course of 8 weeks, I developed two lessons on the topic of environmental justice from scratch and hopefully they will be used in high school classrooms this fall.
Why Spark-Y
Looking back at my internship journey, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work at Spark-Y as a full-time intern. As a college student exploring career options, what Spark-Y provided me exceeded my expectations for an internship. Spark-Y is such a resourceful organization that offered me a variety of working experiences ranging from hands-on activities to strategic plannings. I was able to choose from the tasks and build my internship task bank which maximizes my advantages and challenges my comfort zone. I absolutely love the flexibility of Spark-Y which allowed me to try out new experiences, rotate in different roles, and choose the tasks that suit me the most. New ideas and proposals are welcomed here for further discussion and feedback which eventually led me to making new maps and designing new lesson plans based on my personal interest and skills. I appreciate the diversity in the Spark-Y team and the diverseness of its partnerships. As a non-profit organization, Spark-Y not only gave me the opportunity to learn more about community organizations like Project Sweetie Pie and Minneapolis Farmer’s Market, it also gave me the chance to connect with people from corporations like Cargill, Medtronic, and General Mill. Before this internship, if you tell me I will be visiting the corporation's office and inviting their senior staff to join the youth empowerment events I planned from scratch, I wouldn’t believe it. But now, walking out of this internship, I have more confidence in communication, networking, and business etiquettes than I was before.
Two Key Words
When I was asked what word would I use to describe the highlight and the challenge of this internship, I said the words “Nurturing” and “Ownership”.
Almost all work at Spark-Y circles around nurturing youth and nurturing the environment. Essentially, by nurturing youth how to nurturing plants and the community, we are empowering youth through the concept of sustainability. It is delightful and rewarding to witness the growth and progress on our youth. A big portion of my role is to find out how to nurture youth in professional development and career readiness. I tailored the professional development day to be more engaging for youth by increasing interactive activities. Moreover, in the process of nurturing our youth, I am also being nurtured by the Spark-Y family. I see tasks as learning opportunity instead of work that has to be done. By each week, I grew in both confidence and skills; Now, by the end of my internship, I am equipped with a variety of transferable career skills that are ready to be applied in my next workplace. Spark-Y work culture gave me so much flexibility and positive energy which encouraged me to take the most out of this internship.
As the key word for challenge, “ownership” summarized how I reached out of my comfort zone and transformed in the process of my internship. Spark-Y family gave me lots of trust and guidance which helped me succeed as the lead for professional development program. English is my second language and working in a full-English environment can be challenging, especially when my work is large involved in public speaking, communication outreach, and team collaborations. Taking the ownership of my work is the promise to take initiative, be creative, and implement the plan with the team support. Now I can see myself capable of leading a small team and execute high quality events.