Thank you

I want to thank Carlos Rascon for giving me the opportunity to intern at education Leadership analytics, I know that at times it must have been difficult for him to have to walk me through so much, but throughout the entire process he has been patient, understanding, and an amazing teacher and mentor to me. I am a better prepared professional and a better person because of the lessons he has taught me, a thank you simply won't do him any justice, so I just want to say that I will continue to apply the lessons learned here throughout my career. Semper Fi Marine.

Lessons learned

I have learned so much from my internship that I have joked with the director about ASU owing him a cut of my tuition. I have definitely achieved all of my goals for this internship. I now have a better understanding of the private sector, which will help me develop better strategies for programs or projects involving cross-sector collaborations. Many times these cross-sector projects are abandoned because one or all sectors feel that they are not worth carrying out because of miscommunication among all sectors, being able to understand the different sectors and what they value will allow me to articulate how these projects/programs are in their best interest. This internship also taught me the importance of having data to back up your stories and research, simply put data completes the story in a way that legitimizes it and can help increase funds and donations for your cause.

Dropping my pack

I have to admit I "dropped my pack" about 3 months ago and getting back on track was torture. For the veterans in here I am sure you are familiar with the phrase "dropping your pack". For those of you that are not familiar with this term in the Marine Corps this means that you are done with your service or your mission is over. In the academic world this is known as senioritis meaning our minds have checked out somewhere between the week before or after midterms. Anyways, I fell horribly behind this semester and am now just catching up with it all. Finals are here and its time to wrap it all up, so I wish you all the best of luck and I will see you all on the flip side.

First impressions (free write)

A couple of months ago I was at a professional networking event for small business owners with a client. We were making the rounds introducing ourselves to people and everyone seemed to be so be launching some tech company or travel agency. Anyways they all sounded alike and to be honest they were boring me to death. I'm sure that their product was great and innovative but they were so boring when describing it that they completely lost me. Fortunately, I met this really nice lady there that rescued me from all of this boredom. When I asked her what her company did she told me in the most enthusiastic tone ever, "I take people dancing!" I was immediately hooked, I had to know more. She went on to describe her company in the most lively and fun way possible, In essence she runs a travel agency that integrates dance classes to their program. So say for example you always wanted to learn how to Samba, she will book you a trip to Brazil (the birth place of Samba) and schedule you a Samba lesson with a local dance studio. This way you get to visit Brazil, see the sights, and learn how to dance. Moral of the story is she could have just told me she ran a travel agency but instead she gave me an unforgettable experience and taught me a lesson about making good first impressions.

Technology (free write)

I really wish that people would stop assuming that just because I'm younger I automatically know abut technology. I know that I should probably make an effort to learn more about technology but I am a people person. It took me about a month to figure out I had to hit the PUBLISH tab on the corner of this blog in order for you all to see what I was writing. I even went and told the professors that I thought something was wrong with my blogger because nobody was replying to my post. If I have a tech related question I have a group of friends with different expertise that I call upon, funny thing about that only one of them is my age, one is younger, and the rest of them are well into their 40's. Maybe it's just me and every other millennial is on point with their tech game, if that's the case I really hope I can use my people skills to get through life.

Public Service

Even though my internship is with a private sector firm, we have a heavy focus on public service. Much of what we do is focused on raising the standard of living of every Arizonan. We constantly advocate for financial literacy programs and work with educators in making education as accessible to everyone. We also do a lot of work within the veteran community, advocating for veteran rights and constantly finding ways to improve the standard of living of the veteran community.

Strength of the organization

If I had to choose what the main strength of this organization is that everything is evidence based. The fact that we deal with numbers in an unbiased and analytic manner brings great value to the table. We work across all three sectors to provide them with the analytics they need to inform their decisions, and having an unbiased approach is helpful. If I had the opportunity to run a similar organization, I would probably be doing the same thing the organization is doing right now. Not that I think everything is perfect or that I don’t have any ideas to offer, but I honestly don’t think I would do much to change the current system. The organization has a good business model, the only think I can think I would do differently is perhaps focus on building more relationships with key leaders in all three sectors.