Week of June 24

How does this experience contradict or challenge my academic knowledge?

• Some might think that this experience contradicts my academic knowledge because I am a Business Management Major with a Minor in Mathematics dealing with technology. But the way I see it is that I am helping myself for the future. I am learning about different aspects of a business and I am gaining first-hand experience on situations that occur in a business that I would not be able to learn in the classroom. In my opinion it is always good to have first-hand experience in a situation because it gives you a different perspective rather than talking about it in class. I am one of those people that has to see things in order to understand them and that's something I fell GRT is great at doing. They make sure they teach you something if you don't know how to do it and they take you step by step as well as make themselves available for questions if you have any. 
• I will say this though, I have said it before and I'll say again, I am a little disappointed int he fact that I did not continue to pursue a Minor in C.I.T because I really do enjoy working with all that stuff. I have used tricks at GRT that I learned in my only C.I.T class at Loras and I was a little shocked that I remembered them to be honest. Having said that, this experience has shown me how managers deal with employees on the daily basis, the many processes of training and recruiting as well as making your work environment a positive one. Those are basically things a read about and was taught by Professor Ron Collins but I'd much rather see them in person to see how they play out in real life. I am excited to see what else this internship is going to teach me and what else I will be able to relate to material I learned/ have learned at Loras. 

What, if anything, do I feel uncomfortable about in this situation?

• To be honest, I do not feel uncomfortable about anything at the moment. I actually feel very comfortable and fortunate to be in the situation that I am currently in. 

Special Situation #1

Nothing really happened this week. I was quite busy with two long projects and a bunch of little ones but there is something very interesting that happened. 

Great River Technologies had all its managers, vice president and president meet and discuss the future of GRT and they came up with a great idea. GRT was tired of people asking them what they do with technology, people asking them about what technological services they provide as well as people going into the website and thinking that they are a technology based company. GRT decided to go from Great River Technologies to Great River Learning. They wanted something that would show what services they provide as well as they wanted to keep some of their name because that is how their customers can identify themselves. I thought this was awesome and the fact that they told us about this at our end of the Month conference meeting made it even better. They did  not send out a mass email, they actually set aside some time during the conference meeting to tell us in person; something that I will not forget. I was working for GRT when they changed their name to Great River Learning aka GRL. 

Week of June 17

What emotions and thoughts does this experience trigger in me?

• I would have to say that my experience so far at GRT has been great and it has brought me joy because I feel like I am doing something very helpful to other people. It also brings me happiness because for once everything has great so far and it shows me that my hard work has indeed paid off; this is just the first step of many more I plan to take in my professional career. Another emotion that this experience triggers is amusement, every time I get a project assigned to me I am amused at how much information and work goes into setting up online courses as well as how long it takes. I am proud to be a part of the GRT team, they have accomplished so much with the limited resources they have. 
• The thoughts that come to mind are that maybe I should've continued to pursue a minor in C.I.T. In all reality, I really enjoy working with computers and technology in general. Another thought that comes to mind is that I am very grateful for this experience. Not a lot of people are able to experience an experience quite like mine and I am enjoying every second of it. Also, I sometimes sit at my desk and think about maybe staying in Dubuque after I graduate if GRT offers me a job which I believe is very possible. 

What are you observing about your work environment? If you could, what are two things you would keep and two things you would change?

• I am observing that our work environment is one of the best, if not the best, I've worked at. It is very calm, friendly and very energetic. The people in it are amazing and they just make your day that much better. They talk to you whenever they walk past you, they smile at you, ask you how your day is going as well as tell you that if you need anything you can always ask them. I have also observed that no matter what day it is, everyone is always happy to be at work and if they are not, they do not let it show; everyone is all smiles. 
• Two things I would keep from our current work environment would be the people in it as well as the little food parties we have. The food parties usually occur once or twice a month; they are just a great time, the food is great and it is a great time to interact with your co-workers. 
• Two things I would change would probably have to be to make food day every week of the month because the food is amazing. The other thing would be to maybe rent a bigger office because currently they are in the Kendall Hunt building and GRT only has one corner of the whole building. This would give us independence as well as allow us, the interns/associates, be closer to the GRT group because right now we are in a little area on the Kendall Hunt side of the building. 

Special Situation/ Event #1

This past week was great for me in regards to work, the projects I helped design and the projects I was assigned. I took a big step in my internship when my supervisor assigned me with my own personal project that I had to start from scratch. The project is for a class about learning English and so far it has gone great. I have spent 23 hours working on the project and it is still not done. But the fun wasn't done yet, since my supervisor saw a glimpse of the project I was working on, she liked it so much she gave me another project to do. That project is for a Spanish class which is awesome because Spanish is my first language. I am excited to start that project as well as finish both projects. In my opinion, these projects could be the start of something new. 

Special Situation/ Event #2

I only had one special situation/ event this week. 

Week of June 10

What does this experience point out to me about my own attitudes, biases, or preferences?

• In my opinion, so far in this internship I have seen that I have a winning attitude. What I mean by that is that I will get the job done no matter what. I don't get discouraged when I get big project assigned to me and I also don't lose concentration; if a project or a quick page needs to be done/created ASAP I will make sure it does get done. 
• I feel like I don't have any biases so far. I pretty much like everything I have been assigned to do to this point but then again, that could only be since I have been there 3 weeks. Things could change but I would have to say that at the moment, I do not have any biases. 
• Having said that, I do have a preference and that is that I like working on webpages a lot so whenever there is a project that involves making webpages, I make sure I jump right on it. I have also learned how to do a new project using a program called Raptivity. Raptivity is an eLearning interactivity building tool with a set of pre-built interaction models. Raptivity is used to create interactions which can be added to eLearning content, enabling interactive learning. I have really grown to liking these types of projects as it only took me less than one day to learn how to use Raptivity. Another preference that I have is that if I get assigned a big project, I will take on it by myself and with no ones help. I don't know why but that's just the way I like it. The way I see it, you are only going to get better at something if you keep doing it. 

What am I learning about myself through this internship?

• I am learning that I am pretty good at working with technology and that I can learn things pretty fast. I also noticed that maybe I should have done a double minor, mixing in Mathematics with CIT because I really get the hang of this and CIT is very interesting in my opinion. The things you can do nowadays with technology is mind blowing. Also, I have noticed that once you are around a group of people for a while you kind of start hanging out or talking to them in random places at work and also, I noticed that once I am comfortable with the people around me, I break out and I am myself around them. Usually, that is a fun, entertaining me that everyone loves. I have also learned that I should never really doubt myself and also if I have a question I should just go ahead and ask it instead of keeping it inside. 

Special Event/Situation #1

• There was a situation in which a was assigned a project in were I had to create a chapter for a webpage and the chapter had sub-links as well as baby-links. It was a big project but I was ready to take on it. Well to get to the point, the text the author wanted me to put on the webpage for the chapter included pictures and the way they were set up on the word document is that the words were on the left and pictures were on the right. Well I tried doing that but every time I did, the picture will be messed up and it would be on the opposite side so I went to one of the interns that have been there for 3 years to ask them for help. He didn't know much about my situation but he was very helpful and I kind of got it but the way it looked on  our server, it did not look like that on the webpage. The text was everywhere and that pictures where everywhere. So, what I did was I made a table with 1 column and 1 row and I placed the text on one box and the picture on the other. I showed the intern that tried to help me and he was impressed with the work I did. I finished the project and sent it in to the person that assigned it to me and she was impressed at how fast I got it done as well as how nice it looked. She actually sent me an email showing her appreciation for the job I had done. 

Special Event/Situation #2

• There was another situation in were my supervisor sent out a project and I was the first one to notice it so I picked it up. She said it was urgent so I assumed that it was a very important project. The project was basically to set up the grade book for two summer courses that someone had forgot to do. The professor was angry with GRT so my supervisor tried to get it done as soon as possible. I did not know what I was doing so I asked the same intern that helped me last time where the project was and when he showed me it clicked to me and I suddenly knew what to do because I remembered doing a similar thing earlier in the week. I got the grade books done in 19 minutes each so a total of 38 minutes. My supervisor saw that they were done and what proceeded next made me feel good about myself and the job I had done. I'll let you take a look at it and see what she said.

Week of June 3rd

Part A: Activities/Tasks

- On my first week at the job I met everyone and became a fun co-worker to be around. My first 2 days I spent time reading 3 books that all interns at GRT have to read. The books were books that had very important information on how GRT carries itself and how GRT wants  its workers to carry themselves as well as represent the company. On the third day I attended a GRT conference meeting in were we went over the amount of projects we had done during that month and compared them to previous numbers as well as expectations made early in the month. I also learned how to use all the servers which I learned in 2 days and I was also trained by the other interns on how to use Webcom 2 (which is our main server). My first two weeks at GRT, the Web Project Editing team and I worked on some interesting projects. We worked on a project for a summer course at Michigan State titled "Wine and other Hospitality Beverages" and a project for a summer course at Sonoma State titled "Big Ideas in Cosmology". We also worked on a summer course titled "Introductory Physics 102" and this project was for the author Wathiq Abdul – Razzaq and we worked on these projects all week during my first week. This week, we worked on a summer course at New Mexico State titled "Concepts in Physics - 212", a summer course at the University of South Alabama titled "Psychology", a summer course at Washington State University titled "Environmental Science and Sustainability Solutions". All of these projects are very time consuming but with great time management and once you learn the servers it will go very quickly. 

Part B: Reflections/ What I learned

What are the key events and features of this experience?

- The key events and features of my experience at Great River Technologies are pretty interesting. Some of the key events at GRT are the monthly meetings that we have as a team. At these meetings we go over what we have accomplished as a team, for example, we go over how many web projects we have completed and compare them to past numbers as well as predictions/projections for that month. Another key event is the food days that we have. I believe once a month we have a day in were everyone at GRT brings in food to share with all the workers. It is a good way to meet other workers, communicate with them and maybe even ask for a recipe. 

- Some of the features at GRT are our special servers that we use to create the web projects. There are 9-10 servers and they all have different material from different Universities. We just actually got a new server called Webcom 2 and this is were we do all of our work from. It is a little tricky to use but it is a very nifty tool. It allows us to do the web projects quicker and it gives us access to tools that were not in Webcom 1. 

What assumptions am I making about the people involved in this experience, including myself?

- I am assuming that everyone working at GRT wants to be there because they want to not because they need to be there. I am also assuming the same thing about myself, I will get up every morning wanting to go to work and do the job that is needed for me to do with the best of my abilities.

What did I observe about my behavior and actions and those of others?

- I observed that I am very good at keeping my composure when there is a difficult task at hand. I also noticed that I am a very quick learner and if I put my mind into it I can accomplish anything. Another thing I observed is that I can be very friendly when surrounded by other people that are friendly. That brings me to my next point, everyone at GRT is very friendly and are always trying to have a conversation with you. They also encourage me as well as everyone else to ask them questions if we have any or we need help with anything. 

Situation/ Event #1

- On May 31st, John Vail who is the Assistant Vice President at GRT saw me working by one of the other interns cubicle, stopped and started talking to me about the Cubs vs. White Sox series. John is  a Cubs fan and I am a White Sox fan so when the Cubs beat the White Sox in 3 straight games he let me have it. So I told him to live it up because the Cubs don't and won't have much to cheer about this season.

This goes to show you the type of atmosphere that GRT has and how easily the supervisors and the big management people interact with their employees. 

Situation/ Event #2

- On May 29th we had a food day at our company which is when employees bring in food to share with co-workers. Everyone brought food and I must say, some of the food they brought was delicious. Everyone shared their food, people went up to other people to tell them they tried their food and that it was delicious. In one case, people came up to one of the employees asking for her recipe.