By Sandra Rodriguez-Cortez
I was an intern at Game Theory Academy for the summer before my senior year. This is my second internship. Last summer I was an intern in a preschool named Home Sweet Home. It was an amazing experience, and it made me realize that I really love children. This summer I wanted to do something different that would allow me to interact with adults.
All I knew was that I wasn’t going to stay at home this summer. I had three options: the pre-school again, Alternatives in Action (my school) and Game Theory Academy. I was freaking out because I applied and did the interviews, but that didn’t mean I got the internship. I asked my friend for help about which one I should do if I got all 3 of them, and she told me to leave the preschool as my last option. I was offered internships both at my school and at Game Theory Academy. I was so confused about what I wanted to do. I asked Liz (teacher) for advice about which internship I should take. She said if I wanted new experience I should take the Game Theory Academy internship. That’s what I did.
When I started it was definitely different from what I was used to. There were a lot of computers and that was pretty scary for me at first. What I loved though was that they put me to work immediately. Preunky, my mentor, gave me two lists that had combined contacts and what I had to do was make a new list but each contact was only supposed to be there once. It was a long and challenging task that probably took me a week to finish. I’m glad she trusted me enough to do that. I probably would have never learned that if it wasn’t for this internship, and who knows I might need it for a future job. I also worked a lot on Twitter and helped promote GTA’s initiatives, researched on how to promote GTA and also just got more experience with a computer.
One of my biggest fears was that my work wasn’t going to be accurate. I gained and improved on many skills this summer. The skills I gained were mostly with technology. I learned to enter data into a database, how to get noticed on social media and how to be professional in the office. The skills I improved on were being organized, patient, research skills and punctuality. I also got the opportunity to work with my coworkers on projects. I would rather work on my own, but it was good to work with someone because we shared the work and help each other. I liked that it was a challenging internship, and that I always had something to do.