Dariela Ruiz

May 31, 2017

Reflection paper
I started interning in the beginning of february and ever since then it has been a long way. Since I

did not have any sort of transportation I was assigned to go to the middle school. I had to talk to

[Link] Clark, the middle school principal, and we both agreed for me to go to the media

center. I was excited to start interning there and experience the life of a librarian. I have been

interning at the middle school for about two months, I got used to so many faces, and I chose this

class because I wanted to experience something new and I wanted to see what the real world is

like. I was actually going to change this class because I knew that I would be doing so much

work and I was not ready to do that. But I am glad that I stayed because this has been the best

class so far for my second semester. I wanted to experience the life of a middle school teacher, I

wanted to see how they work, what they work on and how they deal with all the students there.

Although my first choice was to go to an animal shelter or anything related to animals, the

middle school was just as fun. When I first came into the library the first thing that [Link]

and [Link] showed me was the sections in which the books were put in. They were very

welcoming and at first I was a bit nervous because I wanted to make a good first impression.

Later on I got used to everything and I felt like I belonged there. Some new skills that I learned

at my internship is that I was able to make stickers for books or label the books, for example

every book has a lexile dot. I had to look up the lexile score of that book and find the colored dot

that matched it. The lexile score starts from 100 and goes up to 1000 or more and every score has
a specific color to it. After that I just grabbed the correct dot and taped it down on the book and

later on put it on the shelf. Another skill that I managed to learn was on how to check in and out

books. The only thing that you need to do is go to the tabs and click check out book, after that

the students give me a specific number and there name will pop up and you just scan the book

and give it to them. If you wanted to check in a book, all you had to do was click check in, scan

the book and put on the cart which later goes around to put all the books back into their original

place. It is was very simple, I also learned how to look up books and see where they are located

at. These were soft skills, they were pretty easy to do, all I had to do is remember where every

book was at. It all depends on the kind of book you are searching for, one section of the media

center was all fiction books. Those books had the author's last name and you had to put them in

alphabetical order. All the books started from the letter A then headed down to Z, and there was

this section of books where it is only spanish books or books in another language. Not a lot of

students checked those out but there was also this section where it was easy books, like [Link]

and many kids did check those out. I never seemed to organize that section because it was always

messy but Mrs. Shoaf did not seem to mind. The next section was non-fiction books and those

were labeled by numbers, it started from 100 to 999, they also had the author's last name but it

was mostly based on the numbers they had. The next little section that I had to remember was all

the graphic novel books and all the new books. The graphic novels had a sticker that said

novel, and that was on the side of the book, so those were put on that small shelf. In total there

was about 20 graphic novels, it was not a popular section. Now the new books had a red sticker

on the front cover of the book that said new book in big red letters and those books were put in

the readbox section. This little display was already there when I first interned, it is designed
like the redbox where you get movies, but instead it says readbox and all the new books are in

that section. After learning where everything is at I was pretty good at putting all the books back

in place. Now some ways that I fell short it was just trying to pick up boxes full of paper and

trying to tape things on the wall. I could not reach due to my height and they did not have stools

so they would help me with that. There was this time where I had to organize boxes full of

colored paper, they were all labeled based on the color. So [Link] told me what to do and it

was pretty simple. I just had to stack the same boxes together but right after she left I tried to

pick them up and they were so heavy. I felt so bad because I could not help. Luckily Rebeca was

there with me and she could do that but I just slid her the boxes or told her where to put them.

After that [Link] knew that I was not strong enough to do that, so she just told me to just

cleaned all the tables in the library. There was about 15 tables or less, but I that was way easier

than carrying boxes. Since I am short I could not hang up some things, [Link] had to did it

and I just cut and passed her tape. Although I could not do some things I was still pretty helpful.

My successes and failures at the media center made me understand that I can not do certain

things but no matter what I try first and if that doesn't seem to work out I just tend to help others

in any other way. This experience at the middle school influenced my way of understanding the

world. Now I know how teachers work with students and how the manage to keep everything

under control. They have specific tasks that they need to accomplish that day. For [Link],

when the media festival came in she needed to get every student that participated ready to submit

everything. She was so stressed out about it, I had to help her out with some forms, I just filled

out every student that entered the media festival. Also she needed to make calls for specific

reasons, one was for ordering more books and for the book fair that was coming up. She needed
to have everything ready for the book fair, she needed stands, tables posters, books, etc. You

have to be very focused on everything in order to get everything that you need ready. The real

word can be very stressful but fun at the same time. Some new insights that I gained into the

practices of this work experince is my communication skills. Although I mostly worked with the

teachers, I feel that I gained this, I interacted with them and helped with so much. There was

some times where I did not get to do anything because she was not there or she had nothing for

me to do. I tried my best with everything, sometimes I could not do it but at least I tried. I made

some contributions at the media center by helping [Link] with a project, which was making

the mystery section. This was a fun idea, she came up with the mystery display but also looked at

some ideas on pinterest. I helped her create the mystery section, so in order to do that I had to

take down everything that was already up on the bulletin board. I had to put them all into folders

and and hand it back to her. After that I had to tear down the construction paper that was taped

on the bulletin board. That was a struggle for me because it was complicated to take off. The

next day I had to put up the new contruction paper on the shelves but instead I just cut out tape

for her. Then I had to cut out pictures that were related to the mystery section. After that I had to

go all around the media center and pick out all the the mystery books. It was from A to Z so there

was a long list which consisted of six pages. This was all done within a week, not just a day.

Some classroom experiences that prepared me well for this internship was all the work that we

had to do in the beginning before going to our place. We had to create cover letters and resumes,

and we had to do an interview. Which was nerve racking because I hate being interviewed,

especially when it is eight people at the same time, but after that interview I felt relieved and felt

that I could do anything. This class has prepared me for the future. Although this is just an
internship class, I have learned so much and I have been given so much opportunities. Everyday

I had to go to my internship class and then head to the middle school, every week I had to write a

journal entry describing what I did that day. There was not one day where I was not doing work

for this class. I like the fact that she went hard on us, and challenged us, not a lot of teachers do

that for students. Not all of our work was based on this intern place, we had to do scholarships

and look up places to live, how to deal with insurance, a lot of real world issues. I am thankful

for that as well because this school does not prepare you for that. I need to volunteer more often

and explore more places. I need to find what I enjoy doing the most and also what I am so skilled

at. I hope to get more opportunities like this in the future so I can become more experienced. I

want to gain so much more skills and develop myself. The best aspects of this internship was

overall going to the middle school and help out my supervisor. I like to contribute and help out a

lot, I feel accomplished if I get everything done. I like to be very detailed with my work, I used

to get all the books out the shelf and organize them by author but also by the name of the book.

Once I was done with that section I moved on to the next. The worst aspects of this internship

was not being able to do certain things for my supervisor. If I do not get something done for her

or if I just cant do it, I feel like I failed. I intend to be an overachiever and participate more into

the work that I am assigned. I have been gaining knowledge about the middle school, and I have

seen how the middle school teachers work. The one thing I hope to gain and change about myself

is that I need to interact with people more. I feel that this would really improve through time, if I

keep doing what I am doing I will sure have that skill. I need to have better communication skills

with teachers as well as students, I need to cope with students as well as other teachers in the

building. This opportunity looks good on my resume, and this will help me later in the future. I
gained an unforgettable life experience, this allowed me to explore all the possibilities.

Internships allows you to look at all the organizations you dream of. The media center was so

hectic at times and other times it was calm. Since there was a class in the middle of the media

center it used to be so loud. It is ironic because the band room was right beside the media center.

This is the place where its suppose to be quiet but I feel that this place was the loudest. The

media center is not what I would want to work at but this was fun to volunteer at. I hope to

experience more of this and gain so much more opportunities in the future.