To start off I will say that I had trouble at first finding an internship. I tried multiple businesses and I was turned down for what ever reason. Then I remembered the place I went to for college day, The Computer Factory.
I first went there for college day. I found out about it from my grandparents, and I already knew the people who worked there so I was sure doing an intern there was fine. Sure enough, I showed back up to the shop sometime during the beginning of May and my internship was made!
When internships started, it was a Thursday. For my beginning days there, Paul Middlesworth, my mentor, had me just observe the workplace on Thursday and Friday. During those days, I spent time watching what the employees did, asked questions, and viewed what took place when customers came in with their computers. I enjoyed this day because when I started doing the regular work for the next week, I already knew how the business worked and what I was supposed to do.
Then starting on Monday I made a flowchart oh what they employees do when the customers bring in their computers to be looked at. To summarize what I took notes on, what basically happens is the customer walks in the doors with their computer and one of the employees greets them and asks how can they help them. Then the customer explains the issue and then the computer is hooked up and displayed on screen. Depending on the issue the problem can be shown and fixed right there, or be left at the shop to be worked on. Then when done, the computer is put onto a set of racks until the customer returns. When the customer comes in, the employee that worked on the computer comes out and turns on the computer to show that the problem is fixed. Then all the financial parts come next.
For the days after that I pretty much just did all the same work that the rest of the employees did. I did a lot of reformatting ( wiping the computer clean and re-installing it so its brand new ), taking apart and recycling, and fixing software issues ( drivers, viruses, etc. ). I did a little bit of these things during career day but not as much and for as long, so it was something that I enjoyed being able to do.
I came in knowing a decent amount about computers, and I enjoyed coming here also for the greater knowledge of the field. Along with understanding computers better and being able to work on them better, I learned a little bit about the way the business runs. Some time during the first week I had to organize all the computer customer forms ( the forms that are filled out for computers that come in.) that came in for the past month. I had to alphabetize all the papers and there was probably around 150+ forms too! It took me around 30 to 45 mins to complete.
One of the days we built a computer to take to the San Diego Chamber of Commerce which is in San Marcos. They're just borrowing it for now, but it's just to test to see if they like Windows XP or 7 more for their business. Paul got into his car and I went along with him to take it there.
For my internship project, me and Paul came up the idea to build a custom computer and donate it to High Tech High. For a few days we planned out what the computer will look like and what to install on it. Then starting on Tuesday during the last week, me and another employee named Christian built it. It only took us about 20 mins or so. It was easy for me since I knew the general ways for doing so and getting some tips from Christian.
Overall I loved my internship and the time I was able to spend with everyone. I feel I have grown in my computer knowledge pretty well, learned more about how this business is run, and everything else.
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Elective (Art)
I chose art for my second semester this year. I've always been interested in art so I saw it as a great class for me to take. I really enjoyed every aspect of art class, the environment, the lessons, the videos we watched. What I liked about the environment was it felt really open and there wasn't a lot of time where the students listened to the teacher talk for a long time, so there was always a lot of time to finish everything. Also with music always playing, it made it really easy to start working.
We watched a good amount of videos involving different art styles and ideas, which I found very interesting because we learned about art within movies (can't remember any of them by name) and some movies that were specifically made for art.
Mr. Sevilla always explained the lessons very well, and gave us many options and different ways to work on an assignment, which I really enjoyed because it allowed me to be creative in many different ways.
I really enjoyed art this whole semester and during that time I realized I can be more creative than I thought I was.
