Interning with the City of Chandler Recreation Division

Last week I officially started my summer internship with the City of Chandler Recreation Division, this began the start of a fascinating, learning experience. Chandler has a mission of "Where Values Make a Difference" and this mission was presented to me in the most positive way when I sat down with my supervisor and mentor Sara C de Baca, Recreation Superintendent for Chandler and she shared with me how I am now a valued member of the Recreation family and I will be held just as accountable as she holds her recreation coordinators. This immediately set the tone for my internship. While we sat down with each other she went over my objectives and goals for my internship, this was the part I had been waiting on. With all my prior recreation experience and institutional knowledge I was ready to eagerly take on and accept the task, goals, and objectives Sara was about to present to me. While interning with Chandler, Sara would like me to spend a day at each of the various recreation centers and facilities throughout Chandler so I can get a feel for the day to day operations of that facility. While at the different facilities I will also be shadowing the coordinators who make the programs come to life and get a chance to experience what they do on the daily.
During my first week I spent the time learning the recreation reservation and registration system the use called Safari, once you know the basics on how this system works and you are familiar with the programs interface, navigating your way around is pretty simple. It was not until the second day where my skills with Safari were put to the test when I worked with the customer service representatives and assisted them with the customers and answering phones. I realized than, I really needed to spend more time getting familiar with Safari. I was getting anxious when a customer would call and have a question and I could not figure out how to look up the information they were asking about.
Towards the end of my first week I went through the old teen program files to check out what I had in store with taking over this teen program. I my surprise while going through these files, I had my plate full. The recreation coordinator who ran this program before I came in did a horrible job of keeping files and documents organized . There was a lot of work to go through and although I had to spend the last few days of my first week organizing, going through, inputting and correcting, I realize more and more, if it were another job, I would not be doing this. But it is not another job, and I absolutely love my internship, I would not have it any other way. This is what I know I'm supposed to build my career doing.
My internship this summer is going to be such a learning experience for me, I am looking forward to my shadowing of the different coordinators as well as getting a hands on experience of the job positions and responsibilities of the various coordinators. I am happy with my internship and cannot want to see what other opportunities come during these next few weeks.