Internship Site Visits

This week I had the opportunity to visit four internship sites, which is undoubtedly one of the best parts of the job. It is always a joy to see students thoroughly engaged, doing something they love, working closely with a caring, nurturing adult, producing high quality work not motivated by a grade but motivated by interest and passion.

The following is a very brief synopsis of my site visits, I hope that students will submit some work for me to post that will better describe their internships and LTI projects.

On Tuesday I visited Ruth at her internship at Citadel Broadcasting, which broadcasts stations 92 Pro FM, Lite Rock 105, and Hot 106, among others. Her mentor, Deb Ruggiero, is the Director of Community Development and the host of her own radio show titled, “Amazing Women.” Ruth is just beginning a very cool project where she will be creating a 60 second radio spot for the East Bay Met. Among other things Ruth will be learning about demographics, how to identify and target a specific market, how to develop a media plan, and how to put together a budget.

On Thursday I met with Laura (pictured above) and her mentor, Laurelin Sitterly, who is the Director of Humane Education at RISPCA (the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Currently, Laura is working on an amazing project, designing a humane education program which she will help to promote, recruit for, and facilitate. Additionally, Laura will be writing a grant to pay for her mentor, another RISPCA employee, and herself to attend an educational conference in Florida in the Spring.

I also visited Slater’s internship at Small Business Computers in Newport. The owner and his wife, Ned and Linda, are thrilled to have Slater interning there, where he is learning about computer troubleshooting, maintenance, and repair, as well as customer service and how to operate a business. Presently, Slater is building, from the ground up, a very cool looking clear-case computer, which the shop will eventually sell.

Additionally, I met with Gwen’s mentors from Head Start, who were all very pleased with her work at the Joel Peckham school. From the comments of her mentors, it is apparent that Gwen has made a big impact on the kids in her classroom, as they all look forward to her presence on LTI days. In the next week or two Gwen will be creating an LTI project.