Data and Planning Implementor
Between sophomore and junior year I interned at the Washington State Department of Commerce. I was able to help run meetings with different stakeholders concerning the Maritime BLUE initiative as well as the implementation of Opportunity Zones. This consisted of assisting project and sector leads with preparation, aiding in the conversation of these meetings, and reviewing and organizing the documents that came out of these meetings. I learned not only about how to work and communicate in a professional workplace but also how to create a collaborative environment for a variety of different stakeholders. Additionally about 3/4 of the way through my internship, another intern started and I was given the opportunity to mentor her as she adapted to the role.
The two projects that I was able to work on (Maritime BLUE and Opportunity Zones) align directly to my values, however I was interested in the Maritime BLUE initiative more and spent most of my time working on it. Firstly the Maritime BLUE initiative was aimed at creating the most sustainable maritime industry in the country by 2030, and through that growing the maritime industry. I am passionate about solving environmental problems, and to do that you need to create systems and incentives to make every area more environmentally friendly. This initiative made a direct plan to make the large maritime industry in Washington state sustainable and used input from private and public sector stakeholders to find out what was possible and how it could be done.
During this internship I was able to accomplish:
I was also able to develop theses Leadership Competencies:
Productive Relationships
There were many different relationships within this internship, including the relationship between myself and my internship advisor (the Advanced Manufacturing Sector Lead), as well as the Maritime Sector Lead who I also worked with a lot, as well as consultants that worked on the projects with us, and external stakeholders. With all of the relationships, partnerships, and collaborations in this internship it was important to keep these relationships productive. I learned about this through my internship advisor who would make plans and intentions for every meeting we sat down to. She would also explain the purpose of the meetings and what was expected of everyone on the way to the meeting with me so I could understand what was going on and how everything was coordinated.
Organizational Behavior
There were many different subproject going on at once under the two larger projects. There were also many different people that were assigning me different tasks. During the first month of the internship I had a hard time and in fact fell behind on some of my duties, however afterwards I found organizational and time management methods that helped me. After working with my internship advisors I also talked about how much I was able to take on and adjusted how I was assigned duties. This included making a weekly schedule fore myself, making attainable goals, and communicating more with my advisors.
Receiving Feedback
When I entered this internship I was in a place in my education where I had only taken classes that were very abstract and STEM oriented. This internship required a lot of writing and communication skills that I had not yet learned. My advisors were very understanding and worked with me to better my skills, but there were still a few instances where I made mistakes. During this time with a steep learning curve I received a lot of feedback from my advisors and consultants that we worked with. At first I took this feedback as negative and as something that I was doing wrong, but after I started making progress and continued receiving feedback I realized that they were just helping me improve.
Positive Attitude
One of the challenges of this internship was that it required me to get up earlier than I had ever before. I was also working a different job at the time and having two different schedules meant that I wasn’t always able to come to this internship well rested. I found out early on that in the meetings we were going to I needed to be positive and open so that I could talk to as many people as possible about the projects that I was working on. Once I restructured my schedule so that I was able to be more positive at my internship and it also taught me the value of being positive in a work environment.
Scope of Competence
From my experience as an intern at the Washington State Department of Commerce, I was able to identify my scope of competence. I was very excited for this opoorunity and assumed that whatever they needed from my I could learn quickly. Although this was true and I was able to learn a lot in this experience I also learned the importance of understanding your skills and scope of competence before entering a position so you can know and communicate what tasks you can take on easily and what you may need to ask for some support with.
Writing
As mentioned above, I didn’t have very much writing experience before coming into this internship. For this position I was a required to send many professional emails, write easy to understand summaries of meetings and presentations, and write some short professional documents. I was able to learn fairly quickly but there were still some times where I struggled, however with these struggles I was able to identify some methods of proof reading my writing as well as different resources that I could use to help with my writing. This have used the writing skills that I gained in almost every professional experience I have had since and have proved very valuable.
Besides writing and the other skills listed above I also learned about the types of jobs available in the public sector. There were many parts of this position that I really enjoyed and I hope to have in a future career but there were also some parts that I learned that I didn’t want to have in my future career. Also I have worked in many offices before but I this was the most professional and structured work environment that I had been a part of. I learned what writing, dress, and interactions are appropriate in that type of workplace.
Between sophomore and junior year I interned at the Washington State Department of Commerce. I was able to help run meetings with different stakeholders concerning the Maritime BLUE initiative as well as the implementation of Opportunity Zones. This consisted of assisting project and sector leads with preparation, aiding in the conversation of these meetings, and reviewing and organizing the documents that came out of these meetings. I learned not only about how to work and communicate in a professional workplace but also how to create a collaborative environment for a variety of different stakeholders. Additionally about 3/4 of the way through my internship, another intern started and I was given the opportunity to mentor her as she adapted to the role.
The two projects that I was able to work on (Maritime BLUE and Opportunity Zones) align directly to my values, however I was interested in the Maritime BLUE initiative more and spent most of my time working on it. Firstly the Maritime BLUE initiative was aimed at creating the most sustainable maritime industry in the country by 2030, and through that growing the maritime industry. I am passionate about solving environmental problems, and to do that you need to create systems and incentives to make every area more environmentally friendly. This initiative made a direct plan to make the large maritime industry in Washington state sustainable and used input from private and public sector stakeholders to find out what was possible and how it could be done.
During this internship I was able to accomplish:
- Created and implemented a way to prioritize different parts of the initiative based on ratings from the surveyed stakeholders
- Re-did graphical representations of the possible impacts of the initiatives to better represent the positive impacts of the initiatives
- Managed client and guest invitations and RSVPs for meetings
- Helped run stakeholder meetings
- Helped consolidate the notes and information gathered from the participants in the meetings
- Managed relationships with stakeholders and consultants that were working with the initiatives
- Helped another intern adapt and get started in her role
I was also able to develop theses Leadership Competencies:
Productive Relationships
There were many different relationships within this internship, including the relationship between myself and my internship advisor (the Advanced Manufacturing Sector Lead), as well as the Maritime Sector Lead who I also worked with a lot, as well as consultants that worked on the projects with us, and external stakeholders. With all of the relationships, partnerships, and collaborations in this internship it was important to keep these relationships productive. I learned about this through my internship advisor who would make plans and intentions for every meeting we sat down to. She would also explain the purpose of the meetings and what was expected of everyone on the way to the meeting with me so I could understand what was going on and how everything was coordinated.
Organizational Behavior
There were many different subproject going on at once under the two larger projects. There were also many different people that were assigning me different tasks. During the first month of the internship I had a hard time and in fact fell behind on some of my duties, however afterwards I found organizational and time management methods that helped me. After working with my internship advisors I also talked about how much I was able to take on and adjusted how I was assigned duties. This included making a weekly schedule fore myself, making attainable goals, and communicating more with my advisors.
Receiving Feedback
When I entered this internship I was in a place in my education where I had only taken classes that were very abstract and STEM oriented. This internship required a lot of writing and communication skills that I had not yet learned. My advisors were very understanding and worked with me to better my skills, but there were still a few instances where I made mistakes. During this time with a steep learning curve I received a lot of feedback from my advisors and consultants that we worked with. At first I took this feedback as negative and as something that I was doing wrong, but after I started making progress and continued receiving feedback I realized that they were just helping me improve.
Positive Attitude
One of the challenges of this internship was that it required me to get up earlier than I had ever before. I was also working a different job at the time and having two different schedules meant that I wasn’t always able to come to this internship well rested. I found out early on that in the meetings we were going to I needed to be positive and open so that I could talk to as many people as possible about the projects that I was working on. Once I restructured my schedule so that I was able to be more positive at my internship and it also taught me the value of being positive in a work environment.
Scope of Competence
From my experience as an intern at the Washington State Department of Commerce, I was able to identify my scope of competence. I was very excited for this opoorunity and assumed that whatever they needed from my I could learn quickly. Although this was true and I was able to learn a lot in this experience I also learned the importance of understanding your skills and scope of competence before entering a position so you can know and communicate what tasks you can take on easily and what you may need to ask for some support with.
Writing
As mentioned above, I didn’t have very much writing experience before coming into this internship. For this position I was a required to send many professional emails, write easy to understand summaries of meetings and presentations, and write some short professional documents. I was able to learn fairly quickly but there were still some times where I struggled, however with these struggles I was able to identify some methods of proof reading my writing as well as different resources that I could use to help with my writing. This have used the writing skills that I gained in almost every professional experience I have had since and have proved very valuable.
Besides writing and the other skills listed above I also learned about the types of jobs available in the public sector. There were many parts of this position that I really enjoyed and I hope to have in a future career but there were also some parts that I learned that I didn’t want to have in my future career. Also I have worked in many offices before but I this was the most professional and structured work environment that I had been a part of. I learned what writing, dress, and interactions are appropriate in that type of workplace.
Artifact: This is one of the first meetings or press conferences that I got to be a part of during my internship.