Introduction/Goals

Greetings class-

My name is Vanessa Jacobson and I am a senior at Lesley University; this is my last semester! I have a major in Communications and a double minor in Business Management and Psychology. I recently returned from a trip abroad in Athens, Greece. It was such an amazing experience which I miss everyday and cannot wait to return to Europe sometime in the near future. 

The view from Meteora, Greece. Meteora is located in northern Greece (about a couple hour train ride from Thessaloniki). This was probably one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen in my life; this picture does not do it justice.

This semester, I am interning at the City Performing Arts Center (Wang Theatre) in the heart of downtown Boston. My title at this organization is “Special Projects Intern.” What this entails is a wide variety of projects. I contribute to the company’s blog, write newsletters, press releases, and other random projects that my supervisor decides to give me. It is nice to be able to complete a wide variety of tasks, because doing one project becomes bland quickly. 

I ended up starting my internship two weeks early; even though I was still home, I commuted into Boston and put in full eight-hour days. Even though commuting was expensive and tiring, I believe that it ended up being beneficial because I had time to learn about the organization before school began. Now that school has started, I have been diving into the projects; the sense of newness no longer exists and a barrier feels like it has been lifted.

In my internship, I would hope to accomplish the following after the semester has ended:

1) Learn to use my time management skills more efficiently

At my internship, I am usually given a number of tasks, then it is up to me to use my time how I want to get them completed. I normally do not work like this: I am used to having a deadline set in stone. Although I can complete work within a deadline, I am not as good at setting my own deadlines

2) Have skills that will make me valuable in the job market

Since I am graduating at the end of this semester, I need to make sure that I have enough skills that will make me a valuable asset to the job market. As of now, I feel like I need more practical skills, and hopefully I can learn these at my internship.

3) Become more comfortable speaking in meetings

When it comes to communicating with new people that I am not comfortable with, I tend to be shy and not speak up as much. This is a problem at meetings. It is intimidating enough being in a meeting with people who are familiar with the organization. I think I will get better with practice, and my internship will certainly help with that.

My personal goals that I came up with in class is that I want to be happy with whatever I end up doing; with that said, my job needs to be something that I enjoy. I also want to continue making great friends, because people is what makes life amazing. This was one of the valuable lessons I learned while in Greece. It was fun meeting people who had completely different upbringings than what I was normally used to. I want to continue meeting people from different cultures. 

In addition, I want to travel and explore the world; it is a pretty amazing place, and I only got a taste of that when I was abroad. Since four months was not long enough, my dream is eventually leave the States for at least a year to work. I am not sure where in Europe I would like to live yet; unfortunately it will not be Greece because the economy is doing so poorly. However, if I am somewhere else in Europe, it will be easy to travel around to different countries. 

With that being said, my mission statement is as follows; it incorporates everything I just said in the last paragraph:

I want to stay healthy and happy, travel the world, and make solid relationships with people of different cultural backgrounds. I want to find work that I am truly passionate about that will motivate me to wake up every day. Eventually, I would like to live abroad for an extended period of time.

Thanks for reading and I enjoy getting to know you all during the course of this semester!

Sincerely-

Vanessa