Day One

My first day at the Office for Advancement was quite interesting. I arranged my paperwork in order to get paid for the job. Thomas Guengerich is my internship boss and he is the Public Information Officer for New Mexico Tech.

After getting the paperwork to Thom, we discussed a few topics of interest to begin writing articles on behalf of the school. I jotted down a few ideas, among them were the Student Association Appreciation awards, academic awards, and graduate awards.

Since this was my first day on the job, it was kind of slow because Thom needed to talk to a few other colleagues to get more ideas and information. We talked to Kathy Hedges, she updates the Tech website and calendar. She gave some more ideas, such as the construction effort being done in La Raj.

Thom gave me two assignments to work on. SA Appreciation Awards and Construction Update on La Raj. I emailed the three award winners and requested an interview with them, and emailed Dan Jones, architect at Facilities Management to get information about La Raj. I received a response from Dr. Claudia Wilson thirty minutes after sending her the request for an interview--which I promptly responded and interviewed. She was leaving for D.C. the next day and it would not be until next week that I could catch her.

I asked Thom for some guidance and advice in interviewing people. I may be good at talking and approaching people, but I'm shy at asking the right questions and getting the right responses from people. I don't want to misquote them or misrepresent their thoughts in my writing. He suggested that I ask "open-ended" questions and let them answer for me. I also asked what I should do if a person talks to fast and I'm unable to jot down their info. He said to politely ask them to slow down so that the info gets noted down.

Before the day was over, I went to Dr. Claudia Wilson's office and interviewed her and gathered details for the article. I really enjoyed talking to her and got to know a new person. I mentioned that she is my first interviewee for my internship and that this is something new that I've been doing. I at least gave her some background so I didn't feel so awkward for being there--that seemed to help.

We'll see how this goes. First day and I get my first interview.