Monthly Blog - August
The month of August has been a brief period of time where I have taken baby steps in learning about my senior topic. So far I've obtained three articles, one book, and already looked up two other books on the internet. During this month alone, I've done 13.5 hours of mentorship. Ten were performed at Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore, and 3.5 were performed at the Pomona Fairplex. There was one good management lesson that I had learned at the Fairplex: taking initiative if you have a great idea of your own.
Three other volunteers, a staff member, and I were getting very few people coming to our informational booth. About an hour has passed and I just started to get annoyed of standing around and not doing anything due to the fact no one came or had any questions. Ultimately, I told two other volunteers we were going to run out of our booth into the Fairplex to advertise our booth and try to receive donations while informing the public about what our organization was about. We had a stud (a large, wooden 2x4 that is placed in homes), and we took it out there and had people sign it for a dollar. All-in-all, we picked up about fourteen dollars in donations and a bigger crowd started to come over to our booth, curious on what we were doing.
It was a good feeling to bring people in like that. I was bored out of my mind to be honest, but I really was skeptical about the entire idea at first. It goes to show that even when you are bored and out of your mind good ideas can flourish. A wise man once shared this nugget of wisdom, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results everytime." If your plan doesn't work at first, try something fresh and new!
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Blog 4: Interview Preparation
1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?
My plan is to interview one of my mentors, Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson has been a ReStore manager for over three years and has worked with both customer relations and the organization aspect of management. Additionally, he works very closely with both staff member and volunteer alike and has firm visions and ideas on how stores should be ran and how workers should communicate with one another.
2. The Five Questions I plan to ask...
1. Who do you plan to interview? Why?
My plan is to interview one of my mentors, Andrew Johnson. Andrew Johnson has been a ReStore manager for over three years and has worked with both customer relations and the organization aspect of management. Additionally, he works very closely with both staff member and volunteer alike and has firm visions and ideas on how stores should be ran and how workers should communicate with one another.
2. The Five Questions I plan to ask...
- In a brief explanation, how exactly would you describe your management style?
- How do you go about solving problems within the store when it comes to customers? Assume that a customer is quite angry with an employee. How would you go about dealing with that?
- Can you explain in detail about one of the more frequent setbacks that happen within the work place when it comes to being a manager?
- In what way should someone present themselves as a manager? Think along the lines of demeanor, stance, and tone of voice to start.
- How does one as a manager keep workers in line and on task?
Friday, August 22, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Summer Mentorship Component
Blog 2: Summer Mentorship
1. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-1zSl9SlZa7pf0DuCJkqTlP3QAbdMbKCopA-z5DPF18/edit?usp=docslist_api
2. The contact name of my volunteer place for my mentorship is Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity. The contact number is (909)-399-0202.
3. The following questions were raised during the mentorship experience: how can I, as a worker, interact with a customer effectively to better enhance their shopping experience. Which of the following is the most effective way in leading a team: improvision and adaptation or following order by protocol? What exactly makes an effective team leader?
4. The most important thing I gained from this experience of mentorship was that interacting with customers on a polite and professional level made the sale go easy and effectively as opposed to just being quiet the entire time.
5. My senior project topic is going to be Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that centers on building homes for low income families. In regards to the topic, I intend to teach exactly what a volunteer and team leader does at Habitat for Humanity. Simply put, I love this organization. Habitat for Humanity has a noble cause, and I, as a volunteer, am happy knowing that what I do will possibly help benefit a person or a family. Additionally, I have been volunteering since November of 2013 so I have a bit of leverage and two mentors who agreed in advance to help give me the necessary resources required to successfully finish my senior project.
1. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-1zSl9SlZa7pf0DuCJkqTlP3QAbdMbKCopA-z5DPF18/edit?usp=docslist_api
2. The contact name of my volunteer place for my mentorship is Pomona Valley Habitat for Humanity. The contact number is (909)-399-0202.
3. The following questions were raised during the mentorship experience: how can I, as a worker, interact with a customer effectively to better enhance their shopping experience. Which of the following is the most effective way in leading a team: improvision and adaptation or following order by protocol? What exactly makes an effective team leader?
4. The most important thing I gained from this experience of mentorship was that interacting with customers on a polite and professional level made the sale go easy and effectively as opposed to just being quiet the entire time.
5. My senior project topic is going to be Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that centers on building homes for low income families. In regards to the topic, I intend to teach exactly what a volunteer and team leader does at Habitat for Humanity. Simply put, I love this organization. Habitat for Humanity has a noble cause, and I, as a volunteer, am happy knowing that what I do will possibly help benefit a person or a family. Additionally, I have been volunteering since November of 2013 so I have a bit of leverage and two mentors who agreed in advance to help give me the necessary resources required to successfully finish my senior project.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Blog Assignment #1: 2 Hour Presentations
1. What presentations did you see?
The presentations I observed during the two weeks of viewing senior presentations were the following: Ski Patrol, Basketball, Goalkeeping, Plant Science, Military Leadership, Software Development, Soccer Coaching, Computer Science, Warehouse Operations Management, Volunteering to Help the Homeless, Electrician, Soccer, Information Technology, Strength Training, Automotive Repair, and Money Lending.
2. What questions do you have that haven't been answered about the senior project? This can be about the senior project in general, any components or about a presentation topic you saw or what they said?
My most important question that pertains to the Senior Project Component is the following: what exactly is the hook activity supposed to be? I get that it's supposed to "reel" your audience into the topic, but many seniors had different ways of doing it. Some seniors asked tiny questions in the beginning and others had went over the top with it, such as examples or interesting stories relating to their project. For a secondary question, I would ask, "is this project supposed to extremely formal or can it be interesting and informational?" Reason why I asked this question is that people seemed extremely stiff while doing their presentation and they passed, whilst others tried to make it more relative and connect with the audience by being interesting and breaking things down, yet fail altogether. Those two would be extremely critical for myself to know next year.
3. What has the most important part of the senior project based on what you are seeing in the 2-hour presentations?
To be fair, I don't understand this question based off of the wording. However, I'm going to take a stab at it and say the most important part of the senior project is most definitely tied between finding a mentor and the preparation before the senior presentation. At iPoly, it's extremely easy to talk about a topic for hours upon end, provided that you have the sufficient resources and information to do so. However, I've talked to some seniors, and they tell me about mentorship and all of the prep needed to actually go up there and perform. Personally, I could talk for hours on end about a certain topic, especially one I feel passionate about, but learning the knowledge in order to do so takes so much time. In order to be an expert, you must put up quite a large portion of time into the topic.
4. What topic are you considering doing and why?
There are very few topics in which I could personally dedicate time to in order to present it to an audience. However, the most likely of my topics would fall under the lines of Public Works Maintenance. City management and maintenance have always interested me. Example: if a tree falls in the middle of a road, who picks it up? That may seem like an extremely vague reason to do it, but for me, it means quite a bit. Public Works does a great thing for cities such as infrastructure maintenance and improving the quality of city life overall. It takes great effort and organization in order to maintain a city, especially more populous ones such as L.A or Sacramento. These workers have to be ready to respond at any minute in order to perform their jobs and aid the public by fixing broken roads, repairing bridges, and clearing obstructions on streets and freeways. Of course, Public Works is a broad topic, so I'm mainly referring to the organization of Public Works rather than the general idea.
5. What are you doing for your summer mentorship?
As of right now, I'm looking to see if I could get a mentor from Public Works or a logistician, which would be my second choice for a senior topic. A logistician has proven to be a hard one to find though, so I'll end up finding someone from Public Works should I not be able to find one for logistician. All-in-all, I'm still in the planning phase and gathering info about each one. Ideally, I would like to have three backups which would include the following: Public Works maintenance worker, logistician, or creative writer. Creative writer is a long shot, and still I haven't found a suitable mentor for that field.
1. What presentations did you see?
The presentations I observed during the two weeks of viewing senior presentations were the following: Ski Patrol, Basketball, Goalkeeping, Plant Science, Military Leadership, Software Development, Soccer Coaching, Computer Science, Warehouse Operations Management, Volunteering to Help the Homeless, Electrician, Soccer, Information Technology, Strength Training, Automotive Repair, and Money Lending.
2. What questions do you have that haven't been answered about the senior project? This can be about the senior project in general, any components or about a presentation topic you saw or what they said?
My most important question that pertains to the Senior Project Component is the following: what exactly is the hook activity supposed to be? I get that it's supposed to "reel" your audience into the topic, but many seniors had different ways of doing it. Some seniors asked tiny questions in the beginning and others had went over the top with it, such as examples or interesting stories relating to their project. For a secondary question, I would ask, "is this project supposed to extremely formal or can it be interesting and informational?" Reason why I asked this question is that people seemed extremely stiff while doing their presentation and they passed, whilst others tried to make it more relative and connect with the audience by being interesting and breaking things down, yet fail altogether. Those two would be extremely critical for myself to know next year.
3. What has the most important part of the senior project based on what you are seeing in the 2-hour presentations?
To be fair, I don't understand this question based off of the wording. However, I'm going to take a stab at it and say the most important part of the senior project is most definitely tied between finding a mentor and the preparation before the senior presentation. At iPoly, it's extremely easy to talk about a topic for hours upon end, provided that you have the sufficient resources and information to do so. However, I've talked to some seniors, and they tell me about mentorship and all of the prep needed to actually go up there and perform. Personally, I could talk for hours on end about a certain topic, especially one I feel passionate about, but learning the knowledge in order to do so takes so much time. In order to be an expert, you must put up quite a large portion of time into the topic.
4. What topic are you considering doing and why?
There are very few topics in which I could personally dedicate time to in order to present it to an audience. However, the most likely of my topics would fall under the lines of Public Works Maintenance. City management and maintenance have always interested me. Example: if a tree falls in the middle of a road, who picks it up? That may seem like an extremely vague reason to do it, but for me, it means quite a bit. Public Works does a great thing for cities such as infrastructure maintenance and improving the quality of city life overall. It takes great effort and organization in order to maintain a city, especially more populous ones such as L.A or Sacramento. These workers have to be ready to respond at any minute in order to perform their jobs and aid the public by fixing broken roads, repairing bridges, and clearing obstructions on streets and freeways. Of course, Public Works is a broad topic, so I'm mainly referring to the organization of Public Works rather than the general idea.
5. What are you doing for your summer mentorship?
As of right now, I'm looking to see if I could get a mentor from Public Works or a logistician, which would be my second choice for a senior topic. A logistician has proven to be a hard one to find though, so I'll end up finding someone from Public Works should I not be able to find one for logistician. All-in-all, I'm still in the planning phase and gathering info about each one. Ideally, I would like to have three backups which would include the following: Public Works maintenance worker, logistician, or creative writer. Creative writer is a long shot, and still I haven't found a suitable mentor for that field.
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