Hello, My name is Kaitlyn. I figure I can start this off by introducing myself and letting you all know where I am in life. I am a 22 year old woman going to school for Agricultural Education in Wisconsin. It is my goal to teach in a high school and eventually get my doctorate to become a professor. I will be student teaching in the fall. In order for me to graduate I need a certain amount of occupational hours in Agriculture. This lead me in a search for an internship which then lead to finding the Summer Horticulture Educator Internship for an extension office in central Wisconsin. I had been living on the western half of Wisconsin which meant that once I found out I had the internship I had to up and leave where I was living and move to an area where I knew no one.
I was so excited when I heard I got the internship because I had been applying to several and I was always so close to getting them but not quite what they were looking for. It was getting to be the middle of May and still no internship. I was scared I wasn't going to get one. Then this opportunity came along. I had interviewed on a Friday and was told by mid Monday that I had the job! I was jumping for joy, then came the realization that I needed to find housing. That was a stress in itself, because I only needed to be at a place for three months. Every time I would call apartment places, they would be way to much for my budget or they would only do a short term lease of six months not three. It was a moment where I thought I was going to have to go live with my parents and drive two hours to work every day. Thanks to Craigslist though I was able to find a place that was fairly close that didn't care how long I needed to stay and it was affordable. I had found the place about one week before I had to start the internship. It was nice having that stress off my back.
My first week flew by fast! I got acquainted with the office, met lots of people and got to sit in on a teleconference. I also began on my big project for the summer getting a community garden started in the county I am in. I also met with my bosses to discuss what exactly I would be doing during the summer. In that first week I clocked in 41.5 hours! I had helped build a butterfly garden at an Early Learning School and made new friends in the process. It had been down pouring but the end result made it worth planting in the rain. The day after that I helped out at a June Dairy Breakfast by helping out with kid games. The breakfast turned out to be waffles which is very different from other Dairy Breakfasts I have been too. It had a huge turn out and I was I could be a part of it.
The second and third week I spent working more on my projects for the summer. I watched webinars from all over the state of different counties that started their own community gardens. It was nice getting to see the challenges and successes they had when it came to starting the gardens. I am working closely with a group called Live Sustainable, for they are the ones who want to get the ball rolling on the community garden. It is my hope by the end of the summer to have a planned out area for the community garden and a budget to go with it.
One of the best moments I have had over the past couple of weeks is I got to meet a lot of big names in Extension. I got to shake hands with the assistant dean and meet a lot of other influential people in the world of Extension. It was an honor to meet them and be able to introduce myself. Another great moment was when I got to participate in a Civil Rights workshop where we discussed where it was that we needed to be outreaching to in our community. I learned a lot that day and got another idea of something I could do this summer. I will talk more about that later if I am able to do something with it. So it is on the down low until I know for sure its going to happen.
It is my hope that I will be able to update this weekly if not daily. I will be continuing this blog past the end of my internship so I can talk about my experiences with student teaching. For privacy I will not be mentioning names of people or if I do they will be made up. The names of businesses as well might be changed. The stories though will be and are all true. I look forward to blogging about this internship and more. This way I can keep detailed records of what I am doing and be able to look back and reflect on them in the future. Every moment is a stepping stone for an even greater moment. I look forward to seeing what the future has for me. I promise not all of them will be this long so thank you for reading until the end. Whether it be night or day I wish you a swell one!
-Kaitlyn
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