Internship Journals January-April

Journal: Week One

January 14, 2019 10am-4pm (6 hours)

January 15-18 9am-4pm (7 hours per day)

Weekly total: 34 hours

Monday was my first day as an intern at the Georgia College Women’s Center. I am

interning with two other Public Health students, Bailey and Abby. Our first week has been

somewhat slow, since our main priority is completing our online trainings. These trainings are

through the VAT Online, which is the Victim Assistance Training through the Office of Justice

Programs. The training has taken about thirty hours, which has accounted for our first four days

of interning.

Although these trainings are very tedious, they are very necessary for the line of work we

are in. The Women’s Center sees many people in times of crisis, so it is only right that we are

fully prepared for anything that may come our way. The trainings consist of four sections:

Basics, Core Competencies and Skills, Crimes, and Special Considerations for Providing Victim

Services. Each of these sections were completed in the first four days, Monday through

Thursday. The priority for Friday morning has been working on the class discussions, replies,

and starting on the first week’s journal.

For the remainder of the day, the Women’s Center retreat took place. At the retreat, we

did some ice breakers to get acquainted with the rest of the staff and also discussed what is to

come of this semester. In addition to that, we talked about struggles of last semester. I think I

learned a lot this week and I am very excited to get started on our projects and to see where the
semester takes me. I have only positive things to say about the Women’s Center thus far and I

look forward to doing some good for our campus through our projects.

Journal: Week Two

January 22 9am-5pm (8 hours)

January 23-24 9am-3pm (6 hours daily)

January 25 9am-5pm (8 hours)

Weekly total: 28 hours

The Women’s Center was closed on Monday of this week for Martin Luther King Jr.

Day, so none of us came in on that day. Our week started on Tuesday, with the responsibility of

creating programming for the High Achiever’s Program based on body positivity and violence

prevention. We will be meeting with these girls four times over the course of the semester, with a

different focus each time. Our focus today was body positivity, so planned an activity based on

beauty standards and how women are treated based on their appearances. Only three girls

showed up which threw a slight curve ball in our plans, but we made it work and made the

activity more discussion based.

Wednesday was a very chill day. We really only did organizational tasks like setting up a

new white board for announcements. Thursday was also very low-key. We ran some errands and

wrote congratulatory cards for the new female inductees of Omicron Delta Kappa. Other than

that, we have spent some more time acquainting ourselves with the space and getting to know

each other better. I am slightly worried that a lot of the semester will consist of sitting around a

lot, but I think this week is like this because Jennifer, the Women’s Center director and our
supervisor, is out of town for a conference. I expect that we will have more projects once

everyone is back in town.

Friday again was very chill, and our main task was to get the conference room ready for

the staff meeting. Friday is our longest day of the week since the staff meeting is 3-5pm, which

kind of sucks. Despite that, we had a very productive meeting and I hope that our next week will

be more productive as well.

Journal: Week Three

January 28-January 31 9am-3pm (6 hours daily)

February 1 9am-5pm (8 hours)

Weekly total: 32 hours

Again, this week has had a slow start. On Monday afternoon, we had a committee

meeting to get things rolling for the semester. I am involved with the event planning committee,

and more specifically the Faith and Feminism group. Although I am a facilitator for that group

specifically, I still get a say in what goes on in the planning of the other groups, which is cool.

Other than this meeting, Monday did not include many other tasks.

On Tuesday, Abby and I discussed projects to implement for the semester. We think that

we have decided on something, with the help of Bailey via text, since she is out of town for a

conference. We were supposed to go table today but that got cancelled due to inclement weather.

We discussed our project ideas with Jennifer and she gave us the go-ahead, which is

great. Our project includes the Living Learning Community on West Campus, so Abby got in

contact with the lady in charge, and she loved the idea. I am excited to get started on this project,

which I will further describe in this week’s discussion post. In addition to all of that, we

brainstormed ideas with Jennifer and other student assistants about another project that the
Women’s Center is working on. We discussed putting up graphics in a few locations around

campus and what should be included on those.

Friday is my longest day here, due to the weekly staff meeting. Although Fridays are

long, I look forward to meeting with the whole team to see what is going on. My committee is

having our first events next week so we spent some time discussing those again. As stated

previously, I am a facilitator for the Faith and Feminism group. That group will be meeting for

the first time on Monday, which I am very excited for. This group in particular is something that

I am very interested in—not just because I am a facilitator for it. I have had my own troubles

bridging my feminist values with the Christian beliefs I was raised by. I look forward to seeing

how this group grows and for the discussions we will have throughout the semester.

Journal: Week Four

February 4-7 9am-3pm (6 hours daily)

February 8 9am-5pm (8 hours)

Weekly total: 32 hours

Although Monday had a very somber tone, we had to continue our weekly work. With

the Women’s Leadership Conference coming up in a few weeks, we needed to stay in a working

mindset. Abby, Bailey, and I individually filmed videos for the conference, each talking about

what leadership means to us and talking about our future goals. Bailey and I are going to be

working on a proposal for the conference, which we will present day of. I am really excited for

that presentation because that is something that I can add to my resume and can be applied in the

real world, and not just in the collegiate realm. Monday evening was the first Faith and

Feminism meeting as well, which I attended. We had a decent turn out and the discussion was

great. A lot of different people spoke and voiced their personal viewpoints.
 On Tuesday our main focus was brainstorming for the Women’s Leadership Conference

and figuring out exactly what we are going to be doing. We will be presenting in a 50-minute

time slot, which is kind of daunting, but also really exciting. Our main focus is going to be on

personal branding in the workforce and having an “elevator pitch” to be used in interviews.

On Wednesday, we started our morning by working on our presentation for the Women’s

Leadership Conference. We decided to get started on that right at 9am and work for an hour

straight. The rest of the day consisted of working on the presentation on and off. On Thursday,

Bailey, Marissa, and I recorded our first Women’s Health podcast episode. We had a few hiccups

along the way because it was our first time using the software and microphone, but overall I

think it went very well. It will be available on streaming platforms such as Spotify, so it will be

accessible for not only Georgia College students, but everyone.

Friday our main task was to submit our proposal for the Women’s Leadership

Conference. We submitted it yesterday, so we were ahead of schedule. We did have a good bit of

down time today, but Fridays are the longest days. We had our weekly staff meeting and talked

about upcoming events and how our weeks went. We also broke into our groups like usual and

did some further planning.

Journal: Week Five

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours daily)

Tuesday, Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours)

Weekly total: 34 hours

This week we needed to work on our proposal for our program for the Living Learning

Community. We are meeting with the head of the LLC this week, so we needed to work on

something to show her. We did some brainstorming for that, but did not complete it. I also met
with one of the student assistants in charge of Vagina Monologues. I wanted to get involved and

help with that, so I believe I will be selling tickets for that event.

This morning, we had a long discussion with Emily, the victim advocate for the Women’s

Center, about things happening on campus. We were also having some power-outage issues,

since the power went out on Sunday from the fire. In the student work room, none of the outlets

were working so we were unable to use any technology. The power eventually came back on, but

it made things more difficult. We did some work on our LLC project proposal as well. Just as I

was leaving today, Jennifer came and informed us that the High Achievers Program will be

coming today. None of us were prepared or knew that they were coming, so we had to work with

Jennifer to pull a presentation together in only 30 minutes.

Wednesday afternoon we met with Liz Christopher, the head of the LLC, about our

presentation plan. We showed her what we had and discussed future presentation plans. Overall I

think it went well. Thursday was not very notable, as we just continued things we have been

working on. We had a lot of Valentine’s Day goodies and listened to our podcast episode that

was uploaded to Spotify.

Friday, we recorded the next podcast episode on vaginal health. We also worked more on

our presentation for the Women’s Leadership Conference. Finally, to end the week, we had a

very productive staff meeting.

Journal: Week Six

Monday, Wednesday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Thursday 9am-3pm, 6pm-8:30pm (8.5 hours)

Tuesday, Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 35.5 hours

 The beginning of this week was pretty uneventful. Monday did not include many tasks

other than running errands and organization. That evening, I attended the second Faith and

Feminism group meeting. We had a bit of a smaller turnout, but the discussion was still good.

Tuesday morning, Bailey, Marissa, and I recorded our next podcast episode on vaginal health. I

think that we did a good job of combatting myths and falsities about vaginas and I am excited to

see how it turned out. This episode was almost an hour long so we definitely had a lot to say.

Emily also asked us to tidy up the student worker room on Tuesday afternoon because it was

very cluttered.

On Wednesday, Melissa, Jennifer, and Emily led a Times Talk, so we all went to support

that. We also worked on designing a poster about stalking that will potentially go up around

campus. Thursday, we worked on a worksheet for the Women’s Leadership Conference that will

go along with our presentation. One of our main focuses in the presentation is on elevator pitches

and a personal SWOT analyses, so we canted to give attendees something to follow along with.

In the evening, I helped out with the first showing of the Vagina Monologues by working at the

ticketing desk. On Friday, Bailey and I did a bit more work on our presentation. A lot of people

were out of office today, so our afternoon staff meeting was very brief.

Journal: Week Seven

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Tuesday 9am-3pm, 6:30pm-8:00pm (7.5 hours)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 33 hours

Monday morning, Emily tasked us with going around campus putting up posters for the

Women’s Leadership Conference. We put posters up in the main buildings including the Den,
the MSU, Health Science Building, the library, and a few others. The weather was very nice so I

enjoyed walking around campus. Bailey and I also sent Emily our presentation for Friday so she

could go over it.

Tuesday, we recorded the next episode of the Lady Bits Podcast. I think this episode is

going to be very interesting. Bailey and I also implemented the changes that Emily suggested for

our presentation. Bailey, Abby, and I had our first program with the Living Learning Community

tonight in which we prepared a presentation on body image. However, no one showed up. This

was definitely a learning experience for us and now we know to promote the event better for next

time. On Wednesday the other interns went to the Job Fair, but I stayed back and made

preparations for the conference. I wrote thank you notes for all of the presenters and prepared the

gift bags. We then had our meeting with Dr. Kaninjing that afternoon.

On Thursday morning, I came in and finished preparing the gift bags by labeling them

all. Then, the three of us got the name tags ready and alphabetized for tomorrow morning. We

then practiced our presentation to make sure things run smoothly tomorrow. Friday was the day

of the Women’s Leadership Conference. Bailey and I presented during the first session and we

thought that it went really well. We got good feedback from the audience members, which was

great. The rest of the day ran pretty smoothly as well and it was nice getting to see a bunch of

speakers.

Journal: Week Eight

Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 32 hours

 Monday morning had a pretty slow start. There was a much calmer vibe this morning,

with the Women’s Leadership Conference in the rear view. I spent a good chunk of my morning

looking for jobs and updating my application list. Once Emily came in, she had us make a list of

the attendees from the Conference by going through the master list and taking off names of no-

shows. I then spoke to Emily about my job search and who she could potentially contact on my

behalf.

We recorded episode four of the Lady Bits Podcast on Tuesday morning. This week’s

episode was about menstruation and the shame that surrounds that subject, especially for

adolescent women. Wednesday did not include many tasks, but I did email back and forth with a

listener of Lady Bits. We had requested that listeners email us to tell us about their experiences

with different birth control methods. The listener that emailed us had a very interesting story

about her struggles with severe tokophobia, and her decision to be sterilized. She requested that

she remained anonymous on the podcast, so I will be reading a statement detailing her

experience next week on Lady Bits.

Emily asked us to help write up a proposal for a project she is doing about power based

interpersonal violence. She just wanted us to brainstorm some topics that would be relevant and

interesting to college students relating to this issue. I contributed by adding information about

consent and appropriate bystander intervention. We worked more on this proposal on Friday

morning, before the International Women’s Day celebration began. The celebration included a

lunch, which is always nice. The week ended with our weekly staff meeting. Marissa usually

gives updates about Lady Bits, but since she wasn’t there, I gave the updates.

Journal: Week Nine

Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 32 hours

This morning, the other interns and I finalized the PBIV proposal for Emily. She is

meeting with Housing about the program tomorrow, so we needed to get it finished today. I also

worked on my discussion post and am waiting for more people to post so I can do my replies.

Emily also briefed us on a project we will be doing for her this week which includes sensitive

material in a victim database. Since Abby, Bailey, and I completed the VAT Online training, we

are the only ones that are allowed to access and view these materials. We also started preparing

for our next LLC presentation and reached out to Liz to see how we can help promote it this

time.

Like usual, we recorded our next Lady Bits episode on Tuesday morning. This episode

was about body image and we had a lot of personal stories to share. Wednesday, Bailey and I

discussed the LLC program and considered opening up the presentation to all sorority women,

not just those in the LLC. We are not sure if we will end up doing that, but we want to get as big

of an audience as we can.

Thursday morning, Bailey and I drafted emails to send to all of the sorority presidents.

We decided that would be a good way to reach out to each chapter and hopefully have a bigger

turnout for our program on the 26th. We also did decide that we would open the presentation to

all sorority women. A couple chapters do not participate in the LLC, so this way we will be

including many more women. In the afternoon, Bailey and I started updating the spreadsheet of

everyone that has used the Women’s Center’s advocacy services. I will not be working on Friday

because I am going to Atlanta to get professional clothing for an interview I have on Monday.
This will be my first real job interview so I am both very nervous and excited. I hope it goes

well.

Journal: Week Eleven

Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 32 hours

After being gone a week for spring break, I am surprisingly happy to be back on campus.

I am ready to finish this semester out strong. Tomorrow is our LLC presentation, which we have

opened up to all sorority women, not just LLC women. I made a Facebook event and invited

everyone from my sorority’s Facebook page and Bailey and Abby did the same. I hope this, plus

the LLC coordinator promoting, will get us an audience.

Tuesday morning, we normally record our podcast, but we needed to brainstorm ideas

because we didn’t speak about it over spring break. We will be recording tomorrow or Thursday

morning, then will be back on our normal schedule next week. I spent some time today looking

for jobs online as well. We had our next presentation on body image for sorority women and this

time we actually had an audience. I think that the presentation went really well and we got good

feedback. We are also going to send out a google form to get more feedback and will use that to

form our next presentation.

On Wednesday, we worked on the feedback form from our presentation and sent it to the

ladies in attendance. We tried to get as much information back that could be used in our final

project presentation. Thursday we did further brainstorming for Lady Bits and decided we will

do an episode on STIs next week. We had our usual staff meeting on Friday afternoon, but I
missed a little bit of it because I was doing a virtual interview for a position I applied for. I only

missed a few minutes of the meeting, though.

Journal: Week Twelve

Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 32 hours

This morning, Abby, Bailey, and I updated the database of students who have used the

Women’s Center’s support services this year. There were many names, so it took us a long time

to update. I updated the excel sheet on my computer, while Abby and Bailey searched for and

read off the information. This was a very somber start to our week due to the nature of this work,

but it was necessary.

Tuesday morning, I went to the library to pick up the microphone to record our podcast.

Unfortunately, both of the microphones were checked out, so we had to use the microphone built

into Marissa’s computer. We discussed beauty standards in this week’s episode and I think we

mentioned some really important things. I hope that the sound quality ended up sounding good,

despite not having our regular microphone. Later, we helped Emily with a presentation she is

doing for a psychology class.

On Wednesday, we worked on posters for sexual health awareness month, which took us

a while. At lunch time, we went to the Times Talk in the library. It was facilitated by Jennifer

and Melissa, so we went to support them and join in on the discussion about toxic masculinity

and things related to the recent Gilette commercial. I also started on my online portfolio this

afternoon.
 We had more posters to work on this morning, so I spent a couple hours doing that. It was

very therapeutic, so I hope I can do more tasks like this in the next few weeks. We later spoke to

Jennifer about the Girls Grow curriculum, which she has asked us to update. I got a call for a last

minute interview in Atlanta for tomorrow, so I hope that goes well.

Journal: Week Thirteen

Tuesday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours)

Weekly total: 26 hours

On Monday I was out of town, but I heard back from the company I interviewed with on

Friday and received an offer. I accepted and will be starting right after graduation, so I am very

excited about that. I spent most of Tuesday looking over and adding to our final presentation,

which is scheduled for next week. I did a bit more work on my portfolio as well.

Wednesday morning, I worked on my portfolio and compiled all of my previous journals

from the semester into one document. This way, it will be much easier to put on my portfolio and

I wont have to upload 10+ files. We then discussed our project presentation and did the same on

Thursday morning. We sent out a second email to everyone that attended our Body

Image Presentation to make sure we get feedback from everyone. Only three people have filled it

out so far, so we wanted to remind everyone to do that for us. After a while, I got some work

done on my final reflection paper. We still have a bit of time before it is due, but I do not like to

procrastinate so I figured I might as well get it out of the way.

On Friday, I did more work on my reflection paper. Being broken up into multiple

sections with prompts makes writing much easier, in my opinion. I like knowing exactly what I
need to write. Later in the day, we worked on our final presentation more. The day was finished

with our weekly staff meeting.

Journal: Week Fourteen

Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Tuesday, Friday 9am-5pm (8 hours each)

Weekly total: 34 hours

We spent most of Monday finalizing and making additions to our final presentation. We

have come a long way in the presentation and I am feeling much more confident about it. We

also have our last High Achiever’s Presentation tomorrow afternoon, so we decided on a topic

and began outlining that. In the afternoon, we went by the graduation fair to pick up graduation

tickets and such.

On Tuesday morning, we practiced our final presentation for the first time and it went

very well. We all feel good about it and are looking forward to getting that done. We also

finalized our last presentation for the High Achievers and plan on talking to them about consent.

When four o’clock came around, Jennifer told us that the High Achievers cancelled. Since we

were already staying until five, we just practiced our presentation for tomorrow again.

On Wednesday, we were all very eager to get our presentation over with. We practiced a

good bit yesterday so I think that we are well-prepared. I also had to go sit downstairs at the front

desk for a while because no one showed up to work the desk today. I got to interact with a few

people touring so that was very cool. Later in the day, we presented our final presentation and we

thought that it went very well.

Marissa and I recorded Lady Bits on Thursday morning, finally ending our few week

hiatus. Most of the office was gone today, so we really did not do much other than record Lady
Bits. Friday was a low-key day as well. Emily asked us to look online for some articles that

could be relevant for future use at the Women’s Center, so I did some research for that. I found a

few good articles but will probably search for more next week.

Journal: Week Fifteen

Monday-Thursday 9am-3pm (6 hours each)

Friday 9am-1pm (4 hours)

Weekly total: 28 hours

It is so weird to think that this semester is wrapping up so quickly and that this is the last

weekly journal. It seems like only yesterday was my first day at the Women’s Center. Monday

morning had a slow start, but I looked up some articles for Emily, like we started last week. It

took me the entire morning but I found ten good articles and printed them for the binder.

Tuesday was slow as well, with not much to do. I worked more on my ePortfolio, but the rest of

the day was pretty uneventful.

I started Wednesday by working on my ePortfolio again. We were all working on this at

the same time, so we talked about ours a good bit. I did the same thing on Thursday, but it is

almost done so I mostly added finishing touches. I will have to wait to complete it on Friday

when I can add all of my completed journals and the hour sheet up until now.

Friday morning, I did complete my ePortfolio. There really is not much to do here now

with the semester wrapping up, sadly. We discussed Lady Bits and what our plan was for the

semester ending. Marissa is most likely going to continue the podcast, since she is a sophomore.

However, Bailey and I will be on one more episode since we are graduating. It is definitely going

to be sad leaving that behind, since it has been my favorite project of the semester. I also helped

Melissa do some last-minute tasks to prepare for Lavender Graduation, which is this afternoon. I
ended up leaving early in the afternoon on Friday because I have excess hours. I can’t believe

next week is my last.