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Shiana Ashworth

HDF 417
SOLC Intern

Now that the semester is coming to an end, I have been reflecting on everything that
happened but mostly on my internship and how I have completed the goals that I set myself in
the beginning. My main goals were to accomplish a greater sense of who I am while being in a
teacher assistant position. I wanted learn why and how I facilitate in the ways that I do and how
to grow by learning to get along with other peoples personalities. Another one of my goals was to
effectively teach my students how to communicate and interact with different cultures but also
how to do that through facilitating. My first goal to accomplish a greater sense of who I am while
being in a teacher assistant position was a huge success because I wanted to get to know each
and everyone of my students and grow with them and I can say that was a success. I worked with
each student whether it was on outcomes or just understanding the concepts Ryan, Allie and
myself were teaching. My second goal which went along with this goal was to learn why and
how I facilitate in the ways that I do and how to grow by learning to get along with other peoples
personalities. I completed this goal by reflecting on how it was a class of 13 but 16 when Ryan,
Allie and myself was in the room and how all of our leadership styles differed but together we
were the perfect team.
My third goal was my most important goal and that was to effectively teach my students
how to communicate and interact with different cultures but also how to do that through
facilitating. I truly believe that every student in my class was able to learn the different concepts

of facilitating a retreat and had facilitated a retreat effectively while in the class. One the first day
of class Ryan and myself talked about different retreats that we had both facilitated. While
having this conversation we touched on retreats that happened with Multicultural Orgs, Greek
Life, General Orgs, and Staff retreats. The stories from each of these retreats vary by what the
groups purpose was. The attendance, the chattiness, conflict resolution or team building, all of
which are effected by the type of organization doing the retreat. Throughout the course we
continued to share experiences after every retreat that a classmate was on. I thought this to help
my goal because we were able to grow from each other.
The training for my internship was hands on. To prepare for this position I took HDF 413
two semesters before this semester. I was able to learn the material and learn it from two
different interns (Raven & Lydia) who had different leadership styles but still connected to my
own. This was the best training I could receive because it taught me that one can receive the
same information and grow in the same ways but the learning style can vary. My advisor for this
internship had a similar leadership style to me so learning from her was easy, my intern partner
and I have completely different styles but the meeting prior to the start of class taught us how to
work together and grow from each other. Allie met with me and Ryan once a week and in those
weekly hourly meetings we went over what we would be doing in class that day. In this meeting
Allie pointed out what was highlighted in yellow for that day, Ryan and I would then come up
with the best way to teach that specific topic. I believe that this training was satisfactory because
Ryan and I had the chance to use our different leadership styles and creativity to plan what we
were doing in the class. Being integrated into this position was easy for me because I was already
apart of SOLC so I had already felt a sense of belonging. I was able to keep relationships and

also build new relationships because I am easily adapted to different situations. Due to the fact
that I am already an SLC member I didn't feel much of an integration process. My site did not
have a staff development program that I was involved in but as I stated previously my advisor,
fellow intern, and I meet weekly to discuss what we were working on in class, and any issues
that became a presence in the class prior to the meeting. I feel this was important to developing
my skills and helping me maintain relationships with my colleagues.
I believe that I effected the internship environment by openly sharing my ideas and
looking at topics through all perspectives around me. I was able to use my own lens of
facilitating and apply the theories that I am most confident with to each and every individual.
When I first started to facilitate I had great energy and I believe I brought that energy to the
classroom which transferred into the students. I also have many fears while facilitating and I
believe that I used challenge and support to work through those but that my students were also
my support and while they were supporting me I was challenging them.
I truly believe that I have changed while being an intern. I am easily one of the most
through and organized people that I know but this internship challenged that for me. In the
middle of the semester was the DIVE RI conference that before the student lead conference, my
life was getting ready for the conference and I started to disregard everything I had to do. This
tends to happen to me when I am overwhelmed but thanks to this internship I can successfully
say that I was able to sty organized and stay on track. I was also able to learn how to connect on
a personal level with many different people and different points of views. I didn't understand
how important it is to have a diverse friend group, whether it is gender, sexuality, culture, or even

just personality. I personally think my two biggest growth areas this semester while being an
intern are organization and communication.

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