you'd best learn to live while you're alive

My last day at South.

When I got there, another volunteer from our class was already working on putting posters up. Both of us were there the entire time, and Anne had a great project for us. With the Career Fair coming up this Thursday, she needed to make signs to put on the front door to welcome everyone as well as to mark parking. She found this awesome tiger print paper (South Tigers...) to roll across the poster and cut out letters to put on top. I think what we came up with was nice. It seems silly that it took two hours to make two posters, but that is okay. We sat around and chatted. Anne wouldn't have had time to make anything special, so it was great that we could make something nice for her.

The end of this semester has gotten pretty crazy, so it was a relief but also a sad thought that my time at South is done. It has been a great change from my typical volunteering. Instead of working with young kids, I have been doing a huge variety of activities with older kids. Filing, labeling, hanging posters, and helping with essays, applications, and FAFSAs has been a great change. I'm glad I have worked in a variety of places and look forward to what I find next.

Posted by berry191 at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My third day at South High School. This time, I was really busy the entire time.

My first task was to create posters for upcoming events in the College and Career Center. Design put to use! Though they were quick, five minute, posters, it was fun to sit down and play with the images and words. I enjoyed myself. Then I took the posters down to be approved and "stamped" so they could be copied and hung around the school. I got a little lost on the way down (it was my first time walking around the school around), but I quickly found the right office. South is big! I went to a very large high school as well, but it is different when it is familiar.

When I was done doing this, I worked for the remainder of the time with two students on their resumes. South has this summer work program that something like 200 kids apply for. From what I understand, in the spring, there are speed interviews where businesses come and accept so many of the applications. This seems like such a smart idea and great opportunity for the students. As I am now discovering, it is very hard to find a job! The school is doing a great service by helping these kids along.

It was interesting to work on these resumes. The kids have such different experiences than anything I have ever known or seen. One kid was a track star. He had never worked, seemed to have trouble with his english, but was very involved in his school. Another girl was a mother of two. She worked a lot, had day care as a class in school, and took care of her children while maintaining an impressive GPA. I really hope these kids make it. They were so great and deserving of the best.

Posted by berry191 at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last Monday was my second day at the career center at South High School.

This time, I got on there in no time at all. I walked into the school and knew what I was doing and where I was going, which was very relieving. I was greeted once again by Anne. She had lots of little tasks for me to do, which was great because she was really busy. There is a college fair coming up this week and she had a lot of preparation to get done.

I didn't get to work with any students, but the office work is cool too. I (sadly) really enjoy labeling things. My dad has a label maker and I would always buy different colored tape (pink, purple, blue...) "for him" and label everything I could think of. So making files is a great task for me.

I stayed pretty busy the entire time, cutting permission slips, filing, hanging posters up, and delivering papers to mailboxes. I had Anne's student aid take me around to do some of this stuff so I wouldn't get lost. She is a sweetheart. I think it is really cool that South (and all Minneapolis, maybe all other schools) has a program for student aids. I really would have enjoyed that.

Anne had a meeting, so I had to leave a bit earlier than usual. That's okay, because I will be back next week!

Posted by berry191 at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Confession: I am a dork. Since eighth grade, I have been obsessed with college books. You know, the thousand page long books that describe all the statistics and demographics of each and every college in the United States and parts of Canada. The process of applying and getting into college intrigues me. After applying to ten schools (despite the fact that I knew I wanted to go to the University of Minnesota since freshman year), I probably knew more about the process than my fresh out of college guidance counselor.

It is appropriate, therefore, that this semester I decided to depart from my normal volunteer position of a elementary school tutor and enter the world of career center volunteer.

Last semester I worked at the Plymouth Christian Youth Center. I love tutoring and I love kids, but after five years of pretty solid volunteering in elementary schools, I felt it was time for a change. Achieve! seemed like the perfect organization for me. After applying, I was accepted for my first choice school, South High School.

Earlier today I had my first day their. I set up training with Anne Erickson (coordinator of the Achieve! Career center at South High School) and Alison Criss (volunteer coordinator for the Achieve! program). I left about 40 minutes early to get there because I didn't know exactly how to get there. This actually turned out to be okay because I JUST missed the light rail. I sat around for ten more minutes, listening to Girl Talk. Loudly. And dancing to myself. Embarrassingly. It was great.

I quickly found the school when I got off the light rail and was interested in how different the atmosphere of the school was from my high school. It is a bit smaller than my school, but felt so huge. As I walked up to the career center door, Anne opened the door and greeted my by name. I knew right away that I was really welcome there.

Alison walked me through what the career center is all about, which I am familiar with from my own high school. She explained that I would really just be helping students out with whatever needs they came in with it- be it help writing college essays, figuring out what they want to do with their life, or how to get scholarships.

After going through some paperwork and learning the basics, I explored on the websites available to the kids. They had all of those fun career tests that ask you questions and then tell you what types of professions you should be working in. And guess what? I BELONG TO ARCHITECTURE! It is always great to see some short quiz confirm that what you want to do with your life actually fits your personality.

As I was selfishly sitting on the computer getting excited about my own career, a few kids were coming in and out. Most of them were just working on papers or on the computers. Finally one girl came in I could help. She needed help with a college essay. It was fun for me to sit down and look over what she had. I just kept thinking back to everything my teachers told me about what college admissions officers hate to read and what they are looking for. It was hard for me not to get so excited and try to write it for her. But I think I did pretty well at asking questions to push her own development of ideas rather than giving them to her. I hope I gave her good advice...

I also hope that the time I spend there in the future will be just as useful. I look forward to next week.

Posted by berry191 at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)