Thank You

Dear Tim Snyder,
Thank you for coordinating the MCLEAPS program and being my main supervisor for the semester. You provided me with an experience that is unforgettable. I learned so much and enjoyed every moment with the county. I enjoyed our jokes and thanks for telling my mom how awesome I am. I also appreciate you allowing me to shape my experience in this internship and for encouraging me to connect with others in the county outside of Human Resources. I also enjoyed talking about ASU football with you and gripping about their lost to UofA. We still had the Territorial Cup for three years! I am glad we will stay in touch after my internship and you will continue teasing Andy about his picture being in Ruby's office. Thank you for everything and will see you for lunch next week.
Tessa Otero

What have I learned?

The goals I outlined in my first post were:

1) To gain a better understanding of how county government functions and the various services it provides to the public.
2) Learn the various functions of human resources in a large organization.
3) I would like to shadow a deputy county manager and gain better insight about their role in the organization.

I am happy that I accomplished all three goals. I learned how the county serves the public in numerous ways and I also learned about the different functions of human resources at the county. I was able to shadow and interview Mary Ellen Sheppard, Assistant County Manager and Director of Human Services. I also met other county leaders and I'm glad to call them mentors now. The most interesting fact was I had one of the county leaders as my professor this past semester. Angie Flick works in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and is Rozan Latham's supervisor. I did not share this information earlier, but we have set a lunch meeting to know each other more and continue staying in touch. Sometimes, I would call her professor at work and forget we are not in class. I learned that relationships are important and I'm honored to have met so many people dedicated to public service. I gained insight into a professional work environment and observed effective leaders in action. I learned that passion is the driver of success. Many county employees continue to work in the public sector because they want to serve others and they are passionate about their work. Employees at Public Health-WIC, the Sheriff's Office, Human Resources, OMB, and other departments are passionate about their work and that stems from knowing who they are. I'm really proud to be part of the first MCLEAPS cohort.

TRIO Devils

This past summer, I interned at TRIO Student Support Services (SSS) at ASU Downtown. It was a very successful internship and I loved my time there. TRIO SSS is a federally funded program and a grant offered by the U.S. Department of Education that institutions of higher learning compete for. The program provides services to first generation, low-income, and student with disabilities to increase college graduation among these demographics. I am Treasurer of TRIO Devils and it is a student organization with a mission to enhance student services offered at TRIO SSS and celebrate academic success  of TRIO SSS students. In our first semester, we raised $200 and learned the basics of fundraising. It is a bit stressful to commit to starting a student organization because funds are limited and members have big ideas, but not enough money to implement them. During the winter break, the executive team and I are going to debrief our accomplishments and challenges this semester and I hope to establish a fundraising goal. I learned every fundraiser must have a clear objective and goal. One cannot just plan a fundraising event without the message of why should others care being clear. I am glad to be an executive member of TRIO Devils and hope to accomplish great things next semester.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Meeting

On November 19th, I attended the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors formal meeting. I attended the meeting with Mary Ellen Shepard and it seemed short. The supervisors had already made their decisions prior to the start of the meeting and quickly voted on the proposals in the agenda. The most interesting part of the meeting was hearing from the Elections Department. After counting all the ballots, the department reported that 40,000 ballots were uncountable because they filled the ballot incorrectly or wrote down fictional names. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were write-ins for some county elected positions on several ballots. I met more county leaders and several staff members that work with the supervisors. I was able to ask them questions about their positions and share information about myself. Voter education and information is very important and can be effective in creating more civic participation. If I had more time in my internship, I would have liked to tour the Elections Department and learn how the county prepares for election days and the educational initiatives they are working on. Here is a link the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting website and the online video of the meeting I attended is available here.

Strengths

Maricopa County is a great organization to work and offers great opportunities. Government is unpredictable and not consistent, but that will always be present. I like that everyday is different in the county, but I do have recommendations about how to strengthen the MCLEAPS program. This is the first year of the program so we are still learning what works and what does not work. I would like to see future cohorts visit various departments as a group. The interns and I visited the Human Service Campus together, but that was our only tour as a group. I really appreciate that there will be a supervisor orientation for the departments hosting an intern because I think county supervisors must understand this is a learning opportunity for ASU students and there must be more opportunities to expose them to how the county operates as well as how the department functions on a daily basis. Opportunities to shadow department leaders will be great as well. I was fortunate to shadow several leaders, but not all the other interns were able to do that. My experience in the program was great and I appreciate my time at the county. I know the program will only grow and more departments will want to host an intern in the future. I have shared my suggestions with my supervisor and appreciate my input was heard and valued.

MCLEAPS Graduation Video

The MCLEAPS interns and I were tasked with creating a final presentation for our graduation ceremony in December. Working in groups can be difficult, but creating a presentation that showcased each of our own personal experiences throughout the internship was becoming difficult. How do we share our experience and make it interesting? As the first cohort of the program, we did not have any prior presentations to help guide us and we were establishing expectations for future cohorts. We then decided to create a video as our presentation.  I was a journalism major in my first year of college, but I have not worked with video equipment in three years. Since I was the only one with video editing skills, I quickly was appointed leader of this project. I was very nervous and felt very overwhelmed once I started editing. I had to reacquaint myself with the editing software at Cronkite and I also had to relearn how to use a professional digital camera. I wanted the video to be great and I wanted it to be our video. For two weeks, I interviewed my fellow interns and captured footage of them working in their offices. For the next two weeks, I edited the footage I had and asked my fellow interns about their input and what they would like to see change. Several of them would help me with the video at Cronkite and even stay late with me editing. They could not provide much help, but they were encouraging me. Two of them even did narrations for the video. We presented the video to Mary Ellen Sheppard and other HR leaders twice to receive their feedback. The video is finally done and we will showcase it at our graduation ceremony. Here is the link to the final video edit and I am happy to have finished this project for our internship. I hope this provides a better visual of what the MCLEAPS internship encompasses and how great the program is. I am sorry I could not include the video in this post, but the file was too big.

 

 

Passion Planner

I recently learned about the Passion Planner from a Facebook post by a friend and I just ordered one. I have struggled with time management and I have not mastered the skill of managing my time. I have attended many workshops about time management and I implement some practices, but then I don't continue the practice. I am starting to think I need to manage my time to make time to do effective time management. Why am I not mastering this skill?

I think my solution may be PASSION PLANNER!

 

 

I have included a video about Passion Planner and hope you all think it is a great product. I am awed by individuals who reinvent the concept of something, such as a planner. This entrepreneur is very inspiring and I love that she created a product that will help other people accomplish their dreams.