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Elana Jacobs-Pontecorvo

We hosted our first intern this month. Elana, an Oberlin student, completed a winter term project, which “enables students to complete self-directed educational projects of their choice, either individually or as part of a group”.

Elana shares her experience below.

I learned a lot and had a great time during my internship with Raising A Reader. My internship was structured so that I was exposed to many facets of the program. This experience was very valuable because it gave me a sense of what it’s like to work in a nonprofit. The most enjoyable part of my internship was accompanying the program coordinators on site visits, which included read alouds with preschoolers and leading workshops for parents and educators. I was invited to perform read alouds and provide workshop support. I loved being around all the kids and learned lot about adult education. The drives to site visits were great opportunities to chat with the program coordinators about the work they do. Over the month, I attended staff meetings and an Oakland Literacy Coalition meeting where I learned about the professional world.

As a culminating project for my internship, I gave a presentation to RAR staff about adult learning theory. In addition to online research, I included the adult learning experiences I observed going out to workshops. Giving a presentation in a professional setting was a new experience for me. My projects around the office involved data entry and inventory. While this isn’t the most thrilling thing to do, I really saw how much behind the scenes work there is to do to keep an organization running. This internship was great because of the variety. While I enjoyed myself most when out in the field, I was able to understand the work I was doing so much more because of the other projects I worked on at the office. Interning with Raising A Reader really was an invaluable experience for me.