Week 1

This week was primarily focused on getting acclimated to the College of Public Health and
Human Sciences, and meeting all of the Advisors within the Office of Student Success. Much of
my time was dedicated to learning to processes and procedures for scheduling meetings,
communicating virtually, and general operational pieces of the department. I was really excited
to get started with the current First Year Experience programming that was being held, which
were the summer orientations for incoming students known as START. Specifically, to the
PROMISE program, I first worked to orient myself in the style of learning that the weekly
sessions would entail and was pleasantly surprised to learn its a highly reflective curriculum.
Along with the first classroom session came our cohort retreat. This retreat consisted of team
building exercises and identity reflection and development. With much of the programming
being social justice centered I was refreshed with a take on life that was much more relevant
that the typical work experience. I enjoyed being able to take time to personally connect with
many of my colleagues within the cohort and taking the time to recognize the struggles and
accomplishments of other individuals that are traditionally marginalized or not as prevalent in
the general mainstream of society. Overall, my first week was very informative and was an
excellent way to acclimate to the new position and program.

Week 2
With the holiday right in the middle of the week, Week 2s days were heavily loaded with
meetings and programming throughout. I was definitely at an intermediate point of
comfortability with the position going into the week, and was ready to begin reaching out to
the relevant campus resources that would help me to better understand the means of
communicating the university has available to use, especially those utilizing technology and
web services. Through meetings with representatives from Academic Technologies, the College
of Engineering, and Web Services I was able to learn the current methods our college use, what
methods are available, and the general experiences of integrating technology into advising and
academic delivery methods. Due to the holiday impacting my scheduling, I received my
PROMISE programming via Zoom Call which was a very interesting experience as well. I was
very used to virtual classrooms and webchat meetings through working remotely in a previous
job, but it was much more formal and much less personal. Having the ability to discuss very
sensitive yet necessary subjects via webchat is a great experience because you have time to
compose your thoughts within your own private space and then instantly share this stance with
those around you. This makes for much more formulated and thoughtful discussion points and
stances. Ultimately working under the constraint of less days in a week was a perfect
introduction to a little more stressful work environment and helped to reaffirm the necessity of
planning and preparedness.

Week 3
Going into week 3 I was worrying about lacking the necessary content and framework for my
project to have meaningful conversations in many of my meetings. I had meetings with some of
the trend setters and trailblazers of integrating technology as a supplement to learning at our
school, and had gone over many of their presentations and finished products before walking in.
Though I did not have much content, I had a very good idea of the framework I would be
following. That, coupled with the research I did prior to the meetings helped me greatly in
holding fruitful conversations that actually helped to steer and shape the content that I will be
working on moving forward. Through this experience I learned that it is very important to
understand exactly what point of the project I myself am at, and to also understand what the
truly essential questions you are looking to have answered. With this new knowledge I began to
make simple agendas for my meetings that would keep me on track as far as the stage of the
project I would be discussing, and the questions whose answers would be imperative to success
in the next stages. The PROMISE programming was for the week was centered around
formulating our current identities around the person we hope to be in the near future. I found
this exercise very helpful in forcing myself to think forward and show how I can contribute to
achieving my goals on a daily and personal basis. It also covered how to let those identities
exhibit themselves within the workplace so you can be comfortable and empowered to do work
that is truly yours and have your co-workers understand who you are as an individual not just
an office-mate. By the end of the week I was at a very high level of understanding of my
expectations and how the final product would look like. This level of comfortability and
excitement is now serving as a motivation to complete my project in a quality manner.

Week 4
This week PROMISE programming was focused towards developing ourselves as public
professionals, and further developed our identities into our professional lives. With the
homework focusing on polishing resumes, cover letters, and personal elevator pitches, and the
classroom session focusing on the melding of personal and professional identities, it was a great
means of relating the content to my professional life. As for my project, I have solidified the
final learning management system that will be recommended, and have transitioned to drafting
content for the year of communications. The multi-tiered approach of LMS, Social Media, and
in-person communication tactics was also finalized this week, and I am excited to start drafting
content for these as well. Overall, I am making good headway on my project and really enjoying
the diversity and inclusion content.

Week 5
Week 5 was easily my favorite to date, with leaps and bounds of progress being done on my
project and a great trip to Portland for the classroom session. The trip to Portland consisted of a
half day Professional Development event where alumni of the program who were leaders of
change in their industry came to share their stories and professional experience. We were also
able to network with the professionals and get a lot of useful information from them for
current and future success. My project saw approval from many of the key players from within
the college of public health, and was even molding in well with the project of another intern
within the college, which was an original goal of our work. The content of each
recommendation is starting to become more and more evident, and I am finding plenty of help
from other colleges on campus working on similar projects.

Week 6
Week 6 was full of content production, both for my project as well as the final presentation for
the PROMISE Program. Much of drafting the project content included synthesizing the
information from a multitude of sources and recommendations and just boils down to a time
consuming process. I had decided on making a website for my final presentation, so I worked
towards finalizing a template and style for my website, as well as backlogging the content that I
intend to post next week. The PROMISE programming consisted of finishing a 5 year plan which
included professional and personal goals at 1, 3, and 5 year marks. I really enjoyed this exercise
because I am really interested in starting a business of my own one day, and this made me
concretely plan when I will be ready to pursue that path. Overall I am excited to start polishing
finished products and to present them in the coming weeks.

Week 7
This week I found myself scrambling to juggle my final project and final recommendations. 8
weeks ended up being much faster than I had originally though, so early in the week I found
myself putting in a lot of extra hours to have the necessary attention paid to both my E-
Portfolio and final report. Fortunately, we were given time in class to work specifically on E0-
portfolios, so I was able to catch up during that time and shift my focus back to making my final
recommendations for the back half of the week. As for the PROMISE programming itself, I really
enjoyed being able to meet with President Ed Ray, I had yet to have the pleasure of speaking
with him and I am glad to call such an accepting and forward thinking individual as the head of
our organization. As the program draws to a bittersweet end I am beginning to reflect upon all
my experiences and am truly grateful for the lessons I have learned over these past 7 weeks.

Week 8
I had an amazing experience this summer participating in OSUs PROMISE Program, I was able
to successfully begin my transition into the professional workforce as well as develop my
identity as a young and diverse creator of change. Through my mentoring and real world
practice of critical thinking and problem solving I gained I am now confident in applying my
skills and experiences to a variety of different applications. I took this internship on instead of
pursuing a health related internship that would contribute to my degree in hopes of learning
how to translate my skills across departments and functions and it definitely paid off. Learning
how to work in an environment completely different from my own taught me to stretch my
creativity and experience as far as it would go, and allowed me to abstractly apply my passions
in a way that would benefit my work. From a perspective of personal/professional
development, I could not have asked for a better experience. Learning how my many identities
can be incorporated into the way I conduct myself within the workplace is a priceless lesson
that I believe is going to become more and more important with the current socio-political
climate in our nation. Refining a means to stand up for change and push my workforce towards
the future has become a big passion of mine, and something I see myself implementing in my
daily life immediately. Overall, I am honored to be able to take part in this experience, taking
away lifelong lessons that I hope to share with many of my friends and colleagues.