Journal #1: June 28, 2010 – July 30, 2010
Hours off-site: 2
Cumulative: 2
Hours on-site: 1
Cumulative: 1
Total Cumulative: 3
On Tuesday, June 28th, my 2009-2010 independent research advisor, Ross Brindle, emailed a colleague of his, Amanda Greene, at Energetics Inc. and copied me. I would have continued with Ross as my mentor when I enter the mentorship program this coming school year, but he left Energetics to start a new consulting company, is rather strained for time, and will be for a while. I was on vacation at the time but I had limited access to the internet and emailed Ms. Greene a brief message in which I described myself and my interests, and requested a meeting. She obliged (happily?) and we scheduled a face-to-face for the following Tuesday, July 6th, at 3:30 in the afternoon. I was supposed to confirm our appointment the day before, but it slipped my mind and ran away. Fortunately, Ms. Greene was in and we had our meeting, no problem.
I received some mentorship info packets in June, but I missed the orientation to take a just-in-case concussion test (I might decide to play a sport, and the test is a mandatory qualification), so they may have covered this information, but when Ms. Greene asked me how many hours I have to spend onsite, I wasn’t certain. I knew I would have to spend a minimum of 145 hours working on a project; Ms. Greene said that, given the unpredictable nature of her job (she frequently travels and works from home), having me spend all those hours onsite might be difficult. I emailed Mr. Ashcraft about it, and he said that I had to spend all 145 hours onsite; apparently, that is the difference between independent research (IR) and mentorship. In IR, we still had to log hours, but we didn’t have to be at the job site. As a matter of fact, an IR student can elect to hold email and phone conversations and never meet the advisor again after the first meeting. The mentorship program is meant to immerse students in the kind of professional environments they will (hopefully) encounter when they (hopefully) graduate college. Mr. Ashcraft suggested I find out if I can work at the office even in Ms. Greene’s absence.
Ms. Greene said she’d ask about internship opportunities at Energetics and asked for my résumé. It’s handy Mr. Ashcraft made writing one part of the mentorship application. I sent it July 12th and Ms. Greene began discussing formalizing my internship with Human Resources. By July 16th, she was still in discussions with HR, and wanted to learn more about the program. I knew some general things but not a lot of specifics. I stumbled across the Glenelg mentorship site I didn’t know existed and read the mentorship packet. I learned that I also have to spend a minimum of 20 hours working the project off-site, the project proposal and rough draft of the synthesis paper are due at midterms in January, the final synthesis is due February 9th, I’ll have to email Mr. Ashcraft status updates periodically and it is recommended that students spend 30 hours on-site the first quarter, 45 each the second and third, and 25 hours fourth quarter.
A month after Ross sent that first email and I first three weeks after first meeting Ms. Green, I read the good news. She had been waiting on HR and they finally got back to her! We scheduled a meeting for Tuesday morning, August 3rd so I could fill out some paperwork and meet some of Ms. Greene’s colleagues. I’m glad the internship is working out. It would have been troublesome to have had to find another mentor. Ms. Greene is enthusiastic and I’m looking forward to next week!