Internship Insider

Written by: Allison Lee

A bit about myself:

I am Allison Lee, a junior at The Beacon High School in New York City. My family is Korean and Ecuadorian, and because of my mixed background, I have become open to everyone and any experience that comes at me. In the summer of 2019, I was granted the opportunity of studying abroad in Nanjing, China. Throughout my stay, I was able to learn the norms of the Chinese people and immerse with their culture. I also noticed how advanced business and technology was compared to America. Now this made me question, what I might encounter and learn in other places of the world? That’s how I got interested in international business. 

As a result of this trip, I began to research for programs that dealt with business and I came across Futures and Options.  I applied to this program which connected me with Tosca’s company. During this period, I was in charge of creating social media assets for the Talk About It Tuesdays that Tosca hosts, and I was able to create some blogs as well. In addition to this, Tosca gave me the chance to put my creativity out there and I was able to draw out Tosca’s messages for her IG audience. In order to draw out the illustrations, I wanted to create a character that could represent the ideals of Tosca Coaching and Consulting. It consists of a gender neutral person, to welcome a wide range of people and be able to help them sympathize with the message that we are trying to show. I made the character have a simple design because a person doesn’t have to shine because of an extravagant outfit but because of his/her uniqueness. In this case the unique aspect of my character was the imperfect diamond shapes in the wings. Sometimes having something totally “perfect” is more boring than something unusual, yet special.  

Internship Journey:

At the beginning of being accepted to take an interview, I was really nervous. This was the first internship I had an interview for a “job” and being interviewed by a powerful woman like Tosca made it even more nerve-wrecking. However once I entered- the Zoom room- Tosca made me feel comforted and let me know that I was already in, and that this “interview” was just a chat. From this I knew that this experience would be different than just a “mini-job”. The first week was pretty difficult for me because I had never had an actual schedule to follow and I tend to procrastinate as well. I was pretty disappointed in my performance, and at first I was hesitant in asking for help, but I thought that it was the best way to be able to organize myself for this and even in school. Tosca was able to help me organize my notes and plans for the week as well as planning ahead. Although I’m still not good with limiting my procrastination or scheduling, I have a better understanding and I try to imply it daily to ease the completion of tasks.

Reflection:

Everything that I’ve said so far makes  everything sound “normal” (in a sense) from my experience- but hold up- this all happened during a pandemic. The first ever for everyone and because of that this was my first ever quarantine zoom shifts. It is comfortable to be at home, especially when you work, but there’s once in a while that I asked myself how would this experience be for me if it were “normal” ? I could say a lot about the differences, except I can’t talk about something that isn’t occurring in the moment, since everything happens for a reason. Therefore, the only things I can take and talk about from these times, is about what I learned from it. I have to admit, it was really difficult for me to balance out my school work and my shifts. I would tell myself that I would complete certain tasks, but then I never did because of what came up either in school or in my shifts. So I tried to always have my planner open and look at my priority list and tell myself that I would be able to finish it, and I did. I think that we all just need to hold each other accountable and we’ll be able to accomplish anything that we put our minds to. Much harder than said, but we can do it! 

Special thanks:

I don’t know how to describe the amount of gratitude I have for Tosca. She expanded a lot of horizons for me. I had the opportunity to network with people that all had different experiences in the business world, because of this I was able to further discover the career that I want to pursue, and I even got an insight from different views. I learned that there is always a solution to problems both big and small, and if I can’t do something, there’s no use of shutting myself with the conflict but to communicate it with someone else. I’ll try to keep it short here, but thank you so much Tosca for this awesome internship experience, especially in these unprecedented times!

Previous

Next

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *