by Esetu
I did my internship at The Housing Rights Committee of San
Francisco. They have only four staff. They help people that have different kind
of problems with their landlord or roommates. Most of the work is done by
volunteers and by people that goes there for an internship.
My duties were entering confidential client information into
the database, filing, copying/scanning and making sure there were enough brochures
on the shelves for clients to take home and read so they can understand their rights. I was given instructions
on my first day about what to do and when to do it, so I followed their
instructions and when I had a question I asked one of them about it. The
instructions were very detailed and understandable.
My day started at 9a.m. Most of the time I did data entry
all day long. I took a lunch break at noon for half hour then back to work.
Sometimes I had a ten minute break in the afternoon. There was a day I had to
do just filing and copying. I had to stand on my feet all day long rearranging
the file cabinet which was a mess. It took me approximately five hours. Then I
made copies of all kinds of forms and brochures to put up on the shelves. That
was a very tiring day for me, but it was a good experience and I felt good
about myself knowing that I did it the way it was supposed to be. After that
day I started to mix and match my duties.
The challenge I faced was because there were a lot of
volunteers, I worked with different people with different kinds of hand writing,
some I couldn’t read at all. At the beginning, it was not easy, but once I got
to know them I started to key in what I could read and leave the ones I couldn’t
read until I got a chance to ask about it. That helped me not be frustrated
and use my time wisely.
It was a good experience. I had the chance to work on some
of the things that I learned at LEN. I think I have learned some, but I am sure
if I had the chance to go for an internship in a normal office environment, I
would have learned more.
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