Make-A-Wish America is a nonprofit organization that pours their heart and soul into granting the wishes of children with life threatening illnesses. Because Make-A-Wish is a nonprofit organization, it does not deal directly with the public sector as a government agency would, however, Make-A-Wish does participate in public service in a multitude of other ways.
The organization is known for bringing together communities in order to grant a wish for a child. Whether it be through building a neighborhood park, or rallying together at the annual Walk for Wishes event, Make-A-Wish serves the public by reminding them what is really important in life and bringing the joy of a child back to life. Make-A-Wish is truly a special organization with its mission at the heart of every single action and decision made.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Moving On
With only a year left until I complete my Bachelor's degree, I'm sure that I will have to start preparing myself to move on sooner rather than later. I know that college won't last forever, and that I can't have multiple part time jobs for the rest of my life. I know that sooner rather than later I will be moving out on my own, working a full time, salaried job, and making my own decisions, and not having to report back to anyone else.
Moving on has always scared me, up until now, that is. For some reason, I feel really ready to move on to the next stage of my life. College has certainly treated me well. I have learned a lot and gained an enormous amount of life experiences that have taught me well. In these 4 short semesters that I have been at ASU, I feel like I have pushed myself both academically, socially, and internally to grow outside my comfort zone. I have taken chances that I never would have before, and they have certainly paid off! Never in a million years did I think when I started out college, that I would have the opportunity to intern for Make-A-Wish America, or be offered to stay on for a second session!!!! Also, I never would have imagined that I would be named "Volunteer of the Month" at Make-A-Wish Arizona in January of this year! I did not anticipate graduating a year early, but it is happening, right before my eyes, and I am SO excited to graduate and be able to apply the knowledge and insight that I have gained through my courses and my internship to a job that I can put my heart and soul into, and hopefully impact a great many people in the process. There are so many amazing organizations out there, and I am so excited to see where I will actually end up after graduation!
Moving on has always scared me, up until now, that is. For some reason, I feel really ready to move on to the next stage of my life. College has certainly treated me well. I have learned a lot and gained an enormous amount of life experiences that have taught me well. In these 4 short semesters that I have been at ASU, I feel like I have pushed myself both academically, socially, and internally to grow outside my comfort zone. I have taken chances that I never would have before, and they have certainly paid off! Never in a million years did I think when I started out college, that I would have the opportunity to intern for Make-A-Wish America, or be offered to stay on for a second session!!!! Also, I never would have imagined that I would be named "Volunteer of the Month" at Make-A-Wish Arizona in January of this year! I did not anticipate graduating a year early, but it is happening, right before my eyes, and I am SO excited to graduate and be able to apply the knowledge and insight that I have gained through my courses and my internship to a job that I can put my heart and soul into, and hopefully impact a great many people in the process. There are so many amazing organizations out there, and I am so excited to see where I will actually end up after graduation!
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Grad School & Growing Up
Today I registered for my last fall semester at ASU as an undergrad, and that is kind of blowing my mind! To think that I will only have one more semester to register for after that is exciting but scary all at the same time! I am so thrilled to almost be done with my Bachelor's degree, but now all these new contemplations are filling up my brain.
Should I go to grad school?
Can I afford grad school?
Should I start working right away?
Am I ready to not be in school anymore and just have work to worry about and not have to do homework or study anymore?!
Can I afford to move out after graduation???
All these questions are floating around in my mind and at times it is a tad overwhelming. I know that growing up means a lot of changes are in store, and I tend to freak out when a lot of things change all at once. But maybe somehow, if I can stagger these changes, then growing up won't be so frightening. Because after all, we are all meant to grow up and become productive members of society, right?
Should I go to grad school?
Can I afford grad school?
Should I start working right away?
Am I ready to not be in school anymore and just have work to worry about and not have to do homework or study anymore?!
Can I afford to move out after graduation???
All these questions are floating around in my mind and at times it is a tad overwhelming. I know that growing up means a lot of changes are in store, and I tend to freak out when a lot of things change all at once. But maybe somehow, if I can stagger these changes, then growing up won't be so frightening. Because after all, we are all meant to grow up and become productive members of society, right?
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Spring Fever
Spring break is usually the time where the semester seems to get really hard. Over the past nine weeks, the workload has slightly plateaued, but here on spring break, as I am gearing up for the last half of the semester, I am beginning to realize that it will certainly be an uphill climb!
Yes, I have already written six pages for my Policy Analysis, but I still have at least ten to fourteen more pages to write! Plus, I just realized that sometime between school and work and church, I have to find time to go to the Phoenix Art Museum for a "field trip" for my history class, although we are required to go on our own time, which is proving to be a difficult task. Along with that project, I have to create a multimedia project for my history class, which should be real interesting because I am absolutely not a technically savvy person. At all. I am freaking out about how much I have to get done within the next several weeks, and as much as my brain is yelling at me to use the couple days that I have off this week to get ahead, my body is telling me to SLOW DOWN and actually enjoy my "spring break" (in quotations because I don't really get a vacation since I am working most of this week and only have the two days that I normally go to school off). And even as I am looking back at the beginning of this week, I didn't really relax. I washed my car, I did the household's laundry, I cleaned out my closet, updated my budget, and filled out scholarship applications. Busy, busy busy. That's how I will always be.
Yes, I have already written six pages for my Policy Analysis, but I still have at least ten to fourteen more pages to write! Plus, I just realized that sometime between school and work and church, I have to find time to go to the Phoenix Art Museum for a "field trip" for my history class, although we are required to go on our own time, which is proving to be a difficult task. Along with that project, I have to create a multimedia project for my history class, which should be real interesting because I am absolutely not a technically savvy person. At all. I am freaking out about how much I have to get done within the next several weeks, and as much as my brain is yelling at me to use the couple days that I have off this week to get ahead, my body is telling me to SLOW DOWN and actually enjoy my "spring break" (in quotations because I don't really get a vacation since I am working most of this week and only have the two days that I normally go to school off). And even as I am looking back at the beginning of this week, I didn't really relax. I washed my car, I did the household's laundry, I cleaned out my closet, updated my budget, and filled out scholarship applications. Busy, busy busy. That's how I will always be.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Interview with Meg Luther, HR Recruitment Manager
For this blog post I chose to interview one of my supervisors, Meg Luther. I was so excited when Meg agreed to answer some questions for me, because it gave me further insight into this career path and this company as well.
During our interview, we discussed multiple aspects of Meg's job including main job responsibilities, education & training that is needed, new trends in the field, and how she chose this career in Human Resources.
1. What are your main job responsibilities?
~ My role has recently shifted to focus on college programs, mainly local and what we call the Big 4: Student organizations, Greek life, Academic programs, and connecting with career centers as well. I also oversee the internship program and ensure that our interns are settling in well and that they have everything they need to learn and grow. I also oversee special projects such as the BRIDGE program and the Mentoring program.
2. How did you choose this career?
~ I started out working in retail, and I knew I wanted to work with people, but I didn't really want to work in sales or be a teacher. I noticed that people in the Human Resource field were able to focus on benefiting their employees, and focus on the culture of the company and its employees and I wanted to be a part of that.
3. What type of education or training is needed for this position?
~ I think a business background is extremely important because it creates the bigger picture of why Human Resources is important. I also think that having work experience with people managing is very crucial because if you have been a supervisor or managed people in any way before, then you know better how to put out fires and how to have difficult conversations with people, or give feedback that feels like a gift, and not a bloodbath.
4. What advice would you give to someone interested in this field?
~ Take every experience as a gift and a learning opportunity; make every moment a moment to learn, and keep track of accomplishments you have made and connections/networks that you have made.
5. What is your favorite part about this job and working for Make-A-Wish?
~ I love that I am able to successfully create something from scratch and see my work come to fruition. When I started a year ago, there was barely an internship program in the works, and I was given the opportunity to build this program up to what it is now today.
Thank you Meg for sharing your experiences with me!
During our interview, we discussed multiple aspects of Meg's job including main job responsibilities, education & training that is needed, new trends in the field, and how she chose this career in Human Resources.
1. What are your main job responsibilities?
~ My role has recently shifted to focus on college programs, mainly local and what we call the Big 4: Student organizations, Greek life, Academic programs, and connecting with career centers as well. I also oversee the internship program and ensure that our interns are settling in well and that they have everything they need to learn and grow. I also oversee special projects such as the BRIDGE program and the Mentoring program.
2. How did you choose this career?
~ I started out working in retail, and I knew I wanted to work with people, but I didn't really want to work in sales or be a teacher. I noticed that people in the Human Resource field were able to focus on benefiting their employees, and focus on the culture of the company and its employees and I wanted to be a part of that.
3. What type of education or training is needed for this position?
~ I think a business background is extremely important because it creates the bigger picture of why Human Resources is important. I also think that having work experience with people managing is very crucial because if you have been a supervisor or managed people in any way before, then you know better how to put out fires and how to have difficult conversations with people, or give feedback that feels like a gift, and not a bloodbath.
4. What advice would you give to someone interested in this field?
~ Take every experience as a gift and a learning opportunity; make every moment a moment to learn, and keep track of accomplishments you have made and connections/networks that you have made.
5. What is your favorite part about this job and working for Make-A-Wish?
~ I love that I am able to successfully create something from scratch and see my work come to fruition. When I started a year ago, there was barely an internship program in the works, and I was given the opportunity to build this program up to what it is now today.
Thank you Meg for sharing your experiences with me!
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Leadership
Leadership plays a huge role in my internship, much more that I expected it would. Within the first week of my internship, my manager assigned me the role of being project manager for the planning of a huge international, annual conference! I was shocked that I had been given such an important role so soon, but I was also extremely excited because keeping people on track and making sure deadlines are met are a few of my strong suits! The planning for this conference can be a bit overwhelming at times, because there is so much information, and so many people that have to be accommodated, and since I wasn't at the conference last year, I don't really have much to reference when it comes to planning this year's conference. Although I face these challenges, my team members have been so great about helping me out with the planning and guiding me when I need some previous reference from someone with more experience.
I have also been heading up the planning and implementation of a sustainability plan to ensure that the use of a new learning tool is effective in the office among the staff. I have created an interactive contest that will engage the employees in the new learning tool and will incentivize them to utilize the tool more than they have been. The results of the contest and the usage of the tool will then be presented to our CEO for approval.
My co-workers and supervisor display leadership capabilities on a daily basis. Because we are part of the Learning and Development team, we often have to take a lot of initiative in teaching ourselves a program or skill, so we can become an expert on it, and then teach that skill in return to other employees.
I have also been heading up the planning and implementation of a sustainability plan to ensure that the use of a new learning tool is effective in the office among the staff. I have created an interactive contest that will engage the employees in the new learning tool and will incentivize them to utilize the tool more than they have been. The results of the contest and the usage of the tool will then be presented to our CEO for approval.
My co-workers and supervisor display leadership capabilities on a daily basis. Because we are part of the Learning and Development team, we often have to take a lot of initiative in teaching ourselves a program or skill, so we can become an expert on it, and then teach that skill in return to other employees.
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