Jonathan Gonzalez ’24 — I firstly want to thank Roy Kaplin, Robert Horton, and Dr. Pittard for everything WLAIP has taught as well as all the guest that came to speak to us. I also want to thank WLAIP for funding this internship which will allow me to pay for my tuition for next year. I believe WLAIP has set me up for success even though I had to take half of the semester virtually. The concepts I was taught through WLAIP had resonated with me through this internship.
This summer I had the opportunity to intern for IDEA Public Schools under the Construction and Facilities department at Head Quarters. Unfortunately, due the circumstances that were presented this year, this internship had to be held virtually. However, I did get the opportunity to go to headquarters every Tuesday as a receptionist. Recently the organization has been experiencing many changes which makes help needed throughout different departments. I kindly accepted the role to be a receptionist once a week. I got to experience the opportunity to grow my social skills in a developed setting by going in every week. Answering phone calls, setting appointments, and organizing packages allowed me to get a sense of what goes on behind the scenes. Besides being a receptionist, I also fulfill the job as an intern for the construction and facilities department in which I have had the opportunity to manage shipments, facilitate a group of managers and even construct and sign very important Contracts. At the beginning of the internship, I was told what to do daily, however after my managers saw confidence in me, this internship quickly became full of responsibilities that I had to take care of by myself. This gave me a sense of what it feels to be part of a team in a professional environment. Throughout this experience I have been working on a lot of excel sheets correlating with managing packages for 70 other IDEA Schools all over the country. I graduated from IDEA myself and being an intern at Headquarters has been a surreal experience.
