A Day In The Life

            For our final post of this period, we are to write about a typical day in the life of our internship.  To me, the typical day is the great thing about my internship; there is no typical day!  As I explained in my earlier post, my co-worker and I are here to work on any project that the Alliance needs us to do.  It is looking that this is going to provide us with quite a variety. 

            To be honest, the internship has started out a little slow, but that was to be expected.  We are piloting a brand new program, and we are kind of making it up as we go.  The first couple weeks were spent relocating, getting settled, and acquiring the equipment and tools necessary for us to begin our work.  (Fore example, it took a couple weeks for us to get computers in the newly refurbished office) 

            We know that we are going to be spending majority of our time working with the cities of Santa Monica and West Hollywood, and the plan was to meet up with city managers and planners as soon as possible.  However, life always seems to happen and our meetings were delayed as understandably, those cities do have other pressing matters that needed their attention.  Because of this, the first couple of weeks were spend doing odd research jobs, and attending community meetings.  This past week however, we were able to meet with the city of Santa Monica, and we are meeting West Hollywood on Thursday.  These meetings have been encouraging, and our work is starting to take off.

            The general idea is for us to do work/research at the California Center office two days a week, and use one day each week to shadow/sit in with city administrators in various departments.  This will give us an inside view as to how the cities are run.  I personally am most excited to be around and observe the city HR managers.  I know that most people roll their eyes when they think of HR, but it is something that really intrigues me.  HR is often given a bad wrap, but perhaps such an education will help me be an asset to HR departments in my future employment to avoid some of the common mistakes. 

            While the three-day plan is our normal outline, we will be also doing special projects for the Alliance that will create a lot of variety in our work.  For example, our first one will involve a large conference that that the Alliance holds every year that invites urban planners and city managers from all over the country.  It should be quite the ordeal as it encompasses the whole Halloween weekend.  And yes, we are also including a Halloween Party!  So for the first time since I was 12, I have to find a costume.  In other words, stay tuned, it promises to be an interesting ride.