Photo Essay

When I woke up in the morning of the first day of internship I was excited but nervous. I took a shower and put on my black slacks and a professional gray blouse. As it got closer to the time I needed to be there I started feeling sick to my stomach from all the nerves and anxiety of wondering what it would be like. My stomach was so bad I had to miss out on breakfast, so I just headed out the door. Upon arriving i had a million thoughts going through my head. Will I make a good first impression? Will I have the skills to complete the tasks that are asked of me? But I pushed all thoughts aside and pulled it together.

I walked through the door with confidence. Ready for whatever was coming next. In the back room of the bungalow sat my mentor Tim. He got up and proceeded towards me. I extended my hand out to shack his "Hi nice to finally meet you I'm Tierra." The room was dime and lacked color. My first impression judging by the room was that it is a boring environment, but it was everything but that when the clock hits 10 and the volunteers start checking in the room is filled with laughter and joy! Tim began to introduce me to a few of the volunteers some of them were older but still very full of life. What I loved about working with some of the older people was they had very interesting life stories and always had a tip to give me from their experiences. The thing that was so great about this environment was since they are volunteers everyone was happy to come in and donate their time each day because it's not something they are getting paid to do.

The volunteers loved to learn new things and interact with people. They also got a lot of joy out of helping guest. One said "it makes me feel important because the guests need help and they turn to me for answers and most of the time I can help and if I can't I will find out for them and for the next visitors that will need my assistants." Sometimes I would walk through the park and see guests that are looking a little lost and just ask if they are looking for something because I wanted to also be helpful. I wanted to experience the feeling that the volunteers talked about when they helped the guests. From helping people find their way around the park, something I thought was so simple made me realize that the simplest things in life can make you happy. When I began one of my projects in surveying the volunteers I got a chance to learn about other people's lives and their accomplishments. It gave me an idea of what keeps them moving forward. I think this surveying process made me grow and change my thought on life and what I can accomplish within my life time. I thought to myself I can start making a change and helping someone other than myself right now in this internship experience. This thought turned in to my own personal project.

I knew that I could be of a assistants to this organization because I had an opinion that was a new perspective for them to take in to account. I wanted to make sure that I could leave my organization with something that was useful for the wild animal park, so I began observing the park. After a couple days I found a service that could use improvement. It really all began when my grandfather wanted to go to the wild animal park but said "that is way too much walking for me." I looked in to the service more and more and as I did so it became a research project in my paper I suggest ideas for a more efficient service. This was very helpful for a lot of the volunteers and the employees because it informed them on things they never knew or thought about like where do you go to get information for the ADA service, where the stops actually are, that some guest didn't know the service was available. But the greatest part is that I might be a part of some of the changes we may see in the park very soon. I feel like I have helped them grow as an organization but also may help guest in the long run that have trouble accessing certain areas of the park. This project took me most of the time I was here at internship along with the project came a lot of experiences.

At the end of one of the many days I spent at internship. I was walking through the park with another intern, we made our way to the lions were we encountered a face to face with 2 lions. The only thing separating us was a layer of glass. The Lions stared for awhile and like nothing I have ever seen before it started to roar at us. The roar was so powerful that we could feel the vibration of the sound that we being projected out of the lion. I was amazed I could not believe that I got a chance to experience something like this. They hardly ever do anything like what I got the chance to witness. When I told the story to the volunteers that have been here for a numerous about of years they were amazed as well. Another experience that really meant a lot to me was when I got the opportunity to go up in a helium balloon that rises way above the park so you can see far in every direction it was beautiful. It was something I had never got a chance to experience. What I loved about being at internship Is everyday brought something so different and new. There was no day were everything was already planned for me I felt more in charge of myself. It gave me a since of adulthood. This was an experience that cannot be taught in school.