Example Blog Prompt Response

The following blog post is a response to prompt 8, which asks for a description and
explanation of ethical situations that have arisen at my internship site. This summer I’m
interning at Thomas Jefferson Middle School (TJ) in Arlington, Virginia. I’ve spent most of
the summer tutoring students who are attending summer elective courses. Lately, I’ve spent a
lot of time helping students in a debate course taught by one of the American government
teachers at TJ. At the beginning of each week, students get a new debate topic, they spend the
week researching the topic and then debate it on Friday. This week the students are debating
whether TJ Middle School should change its name. My ethical dilemma arose when students
asked me for my opinion on the topic. I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I tried to redirect
them to their work. I’ve been going back and forth on the topic all week. What would you all
do in my situation? When do you think it is appropriate for a teacher to share their opinions
with students? Do you think this is even an appropriate topic to ask middle school students to
debate?

1. Creating goals will help you keep track of your progress throughout your internship.
A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Using the
SMART goal framework, list three professional and/or personal goals you would like to
accomplish through your internship.

The following blog post is a response to prompt 1, which asks about professional and/or
personal goals I wish to achieve by the end of my summer internship. This summer I am
interning at a hospitality-themed and employment-oriented startup project as a product
management intern. The final outcome of the project is an application that helps connect
Vietnamese students with a passion for hospitality with employers who look for short- and
long-term employees. Personally, the idea behind this startup is truly inspiring because it
provides solutions to a deep-rooted dilemma in my country: freshmen and sophomores’
inability to find part-time jobs on grounds of lack of job-related experience and proper
resources.

For this internship, I would like to learn more about how a startup works: how it unfolds from
ideas and concepts on the paper into the reality. Understanding that a startup has much
heavier workloads as a business, I have expected myself to work much harder and more
proactively not only with my intern colleagues but also my supervisors, both of whom are
very responsive to my needs and questions. The product management intern position is a new
ground for me to cover, which may increase the workload that I have to take on. Fortunately,
one of my supervisors, who is also the founder of the startup, often shares with me his
experiences and walks me through the process efficiently.

In addition, I would like to learn more about the local market, especially the behavior of
same-age students with whom this startup project aims to connect. As a cultural psychology
enthusiast, I am interested in how different Eastern (i.e., Vietnamese) and Western (i.e., U.S.)
students are from each other in terms of career-oriented maturity, preparation, and
experience. Coming to Grinnell to see students help each other not only in academics but also
in extracurricular activities and so much more, I am curious about how the situation back
home develops. Since I also plan to come back home to work after graduation, understanding
how the Vietnam audience and market work helps me to adjust my work style and network
with more potential partners more easily.

Last but not least, I want to improve my time management skill as I often underestimate the
heaviness of my workloads and over-commit to more projects than expected. This puts me in
a situation where I feel pressurized to work with 200 percent of my efforts and end up
exhausting myself, being deprived of sleep, and losing connection with some people.
Reasoning for this willingness to overdo, I feel like I am wasting my time if I do not have
anything to do. I am trying to look for some suggestions to tackle this problem to boost my
performance in the internship and also in the next academic year at Grinnell. Have you ever
experienced such a feeling or event? What would you all do in my situation?

Thank you very much for reading my blog prompt and responding (if possible). Have a nice
day, Grinnellians!