Week 8: Midterm Reflection

 

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. If you did not read the first entry of mine, my name is Hiram Davila. I am a student at the University of Central Florida and will be graduating this semester. This blog post will be following my internship with RICHES Digital Archive throughout the Spring 2023 semester.

 

Unlike other weeks, I do not have too much to report. I have been working on the same metadata I have been for the past 3 weeks or so, but I am coming to a conclusion with it. I have had great support from other RICHES members in figuring out metadata and its different elements plus the different elements that are specific to RICHES metadata. I am ready to finish this assignment up and move on to the next one.

 

I want to take this week to reflect on my experience of being in an internship in general as this is the midpoint of the semester. When I first began looking to start an internship last semester, I expected to be at a worksite and working X amount of hours while being supervised. Because of the nature of the work I do and the RICHES initiative in general, as well as perhaps COVID, all the work I have done as been online other than the events I have gone to. Again, this may be because RICHES is an online archive, but it still was not what I was first expecting from an internship.

 

A challenge that I thought I would be having with my internship is that I would struggle to find a balance between schoolwork, internship, and social life. I have found that that may have been the case for the first week or two, but not anymore. Going into my final semester, I have relatively “easy” classes. Compared to some other semesters, I have less to read in these classes and I have a great understanding of some of the courses material, such as my Latin American History class. These factors among others have allowed me to manage my schoolwork without my internship causing too much of a disturbance. For my social life, I was scarcely involved with campus or clubs and I hoped to change that this semester. I joined the bowling club, which I have met tons of great people. What’s good about bowling is that there is a lot of free time when we practice in between our turns to bowl. I bring my laptop with me and I am to socialize while also doing extra work for my internship or my schoolwork.

            I have had a positive experience with my internship so far. All the challenges I expected I have faced head-on and have overcome, all my expectations have met. I am gaining a lot of experience I otherwise would not be exposed to if I did not sign up for an internship and I am excited to put the skills I have learned towards my post-grad career.