The Interns Podcast Season 1 Episode 3

Alex interviews interns each week to learn about their majors and work experiences. Last week, Alessa, a construction management major, shared her work experience. This week, Luna, an entrepreneurship major, talks about her journey from nursing to entrepreneurship to teaching. She discovered her passion for teaching while volunteering at a refugee center in Spain. She now has an internship at a middle school running a girls club and an ESL program. Luna also studied abroad in Barcelona and Sevilla, where she had an internship at a yoga studio. She plans to join the Peace Corps after college. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the interns. As you know, my name is Alex and I interview interns each week to figure out what their major is additional to their internship experiences as well as work experiences. Last week I interviewed my roommate Alessa and she was a construction management major and she told us all about her work experience. This week we have a new guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hi guys. My name is Luna Hare. I'm from Southwest Florida. I'm currently an entrepreneurship major. However, now I want to be a teacher, which is a whole 360 from what I originally thought I wanted to do, but I found out what I wanted to do based on my internship and other volunteer opportunities. Yeah, so who got you into entrepreneurship and then how did you transfer for entrepreneurship over to teaching? That is a large jump. Yeah, so going back almost three, four years, I'm a senior now. I started college as a nursing major actually. I really had the goal of wanting to help people. I took anatomy and I decided that the medical field was not for me. So then I went from nursing and during COVID I had created a nonprofit that served my community and gave fresh photos for people in need. And during that endeavor I really enjoyed the thought or the process of like working for myself and creating something that was my own. So when I realized I wanted to switch out of nursing, I thought entrepreneurship would be a great place to start. And then between the time of quarantine and where I'm at now, I had studied abroad twice. The first time in Barcelona and the second time in Sevilla. And while I was in Sevilla, I had an internship at a yoga studio, which was a small business relating to entrepreneurship. But at the same time, I found a volunteer opportunity, which was teaching English at a refugee center. And during that experience, I learned that I love teaching and I love learning about people around me and helping people and the aspect of being able to like be a mentor and teach people things that they didn't already know. Because I feel like if you look back at like teachers, teachers are like really instrumental figures in our lives. And I don't think we like realize that when we're younger, but as we go into college, we start to like gain a bigger perspective. So when I came back to FGCU, I had known that I wanted to do another internship, I just didn't know what yet. And I was in the library and I was being nosy and I was talking to my friend who was printing out papers. And I was like, What are these papers for? And she's like, Well, I have an internship with United Way, which is a nonprofit organization. And I work at an elementary school and I run a girls club there. And I was like, Oh my god, that's amazing. Like that's, that's a wonderful opportunity, something that I would be really interested in doing. And she's like, Yeah, I can give you their point of contact. So I reached out to United Way. And I can talk more about United Way throughout the podcast. It's a huge nonprofit, nationwide and locally. But I had interviewed with them and they like read my resume, saw that I had started my own nonprofit, I had taught English, all the requirements and qualifications that I had were checked off. And they told me that I would be great at the middle school. So right now I have an internship at Fort Myers Middle Academy, where I run a girls club. And I also started an ESL program for students who need to enhance their English learning skills. As one third of the population at the middle school is a native Spanish speaker or has little to no English skills, but it's put into English classes, which is a whole other problem in itself that I can explain more about. But that's how I got it was kind of like fate. Two paths collided. I never it has nothing. The other girl I interned with is actually a social work major. And she got connected through her major, but I have found it on my own just through the universe, I guess, or whatever higher power is out there just aligned me at the same time. And I love it. I love it so much. No, that's really you surely have made the full use of your college experience. That's for sure. Now to backtrack just a tiny bit with your so obviously going out learning out of state is really cool. Did you do that through FGCU? Or was that through another college? Yeah, no, I did study abroad through FGCU. A lot of the study abroad programs that are through FGCU are really third party programs. Gotcha. But I was actually able to find both my study abroad programs through FGCU scholarships. Oh, cool. And scholarships in the state of Florida. And if anyone ever wants to hear about how to find study abroad through scholarships, they can reach out to me about that as well. Oh, absolutely. You are our first student that has studied abroad as well with their internship experience. So like, do you want to touch a little bit on about the yoga? Yeah, that sounds really cool. So the first time I went abroad was Barcelona and not I feel like was more for like the vibes. It was a great time. And so but the second time I knew I wanted to go back to Spain. But I wanted to do it with a little bit more purpose rather than just taking classes and like learning about the culture and making friends. And I decided to add an internship onto my coursework as well. Of course, this internship is unpaid, but it's all for the experience. And so I absolutely loved it. It was it was a yoga studio, I got free yoga classes, I basically did marketing for them. And I would also like open up the studio just day to day activities as of any business owner, essentially. And during that period of time, that was last fall, not this fall, but last fall. But during that period of time, I had a had a mindset that I really wanted to intern in New York City the following summer, which would have been this past summer. Because I was an entrepreneurship major, I was marketing, I was like all the above. And I thought it'd be a great experience to work for a corporation in New York City and see if marketing was something that I wanted to do. Also living in New York City in the summer just sounded like a fun idea. So my dream, yeah, I plan on moving to New York City one day, just I don't think it's in my like three year plan. But one day I want to move to New York City, maybe the 10 year 10 year plan. 100%. I love like the culture, the life, the beauty of New York City. I love everything. I'm actually going in two weekends. But besides the point, um, so I was like on LinkedIn every day networking, doing zoom calls with people applying to internships, doing interviews, the whole nine yards of someone, everything that someone does when they want to intern at a corporation. And like I said, during that time, I was like having my internship abroad, putting the steps in place to get an internship for the summer. And then I had the volunteer opportunity of working as an English teacher. And that's what really like, I really enjoyed doing that. That was what like lit up my spirit. Like I was so excited to go see my like students every day. And my students were actually from Afghanistan and Syria. They had been refugees that fled the war when the Taliban took over in August of 2021. So I was working with these people in all September 2022. So it had been a full year since they had fled their country. But it was just it was a cultural exchange. It was a beautiful experience. Yeah. So speaking of like, how, how was that experience? How did it differ from America and working in America over compared to working overseas? Yeah, I think, well, one, you have the language barrier, right? That's what that's the main start. Um, but I think from my, you know, from study abroad to like the internship to the volunteer, one thing that you like learn across all these things is that like, people are all the same, no matter where you go. The only thing that differs us is our cultural norms, per se. But like, most people are kind, most people are polite, most people are willing to tell their story. And I heard their stories. Um, I would say that I don't think they can, just as I can't speak up, can't go into a full classroom and like talking Spanish, they, by the end of three, the three months, it's not like they were like, fluent in English. However, it was a cultural exchange between us. And we learned they had probably never met in America, a crazy blonde American girl in their life. Yeah, it just has, as I had never, I have friends who are, have a background from Iraq or Afghanistan, but I had never met a refugee who was living in a country and then had to flee. So it was a remarkable experience. And I think that it was even crazier because, um, one of the women that I taught from Afghanistan was actually one out of 90 women in parliament. And Afghanistan's a country where women, most women don't even have rights. And I think that this is just a side note that a lot of the times Americans have this like misconceived idea of people from Afghanistan or people that are refugees, when in reality, refugees, a lot of the times are the politicians, the lawyers, the doctors, the people who had the capabilities to leave a country and create a new life. And these people were so intellectual and so ready to learn. And it really just I, after college, I hope to join the Peace Corps. I don't know if you know what the Peace Corps is. Um, I do. But for our viewers that may not, do you want to? Yeah, the Peace Corps is an organization through the United States government. It's a two year experience where you go to a third world country and you're either a health care worker, community engagement officer, an English teacher, you're in agriculture, anything that's kind of like nonprofit based. Um, so that's one of my goals to join the Peace Corps after college. But the whole, I just got a little taste of it when I was an English teacher in Spain. And I mean, I, I hope I can go back there one day and visit my students. They were wonderful. Would that be a goal of yours as well as to work international? Yeah. So my internship now is at the middle school, but I graduate in December and I'm planning on moving back to Spain in January to teach English for six months. So I'm like, I'm following the path. And I think going back to this whole segment about interns, go out there and get an internship, go out there and volunteer because you both find what you truly are passionate about compared to what you think is right for you. No, absolutely. And that's been the coolest part about this experience, not to shamelessly plug my own podcast, but to shamelessly plug my own podcast. Just meeting different people, talking to different people, hearing their experiences is a really cool thing. So yeah, I think life is all about learning about, I mean, from my personality, from my perspective of my personality, learning about where other people come from and what their story is and how they got from point A to point B. Yeah, no. And it's just the culture and everything like that's just to have like to meet somebody from something else to be able to adapt that into your own, if not, whether it's a life lesson, whether it's a cuisine or maybe like formal wear, etc. To be able to adapt that into your own culture is such a cool thing. Yeah, to have a greater perspective. It really it helped me coming back to FGCU. And it helps me now during my internship to have a greater perspective on the world around me. And like, like I said, I started the ESL program. And I think that was a lot based on from what I saw back when I taught English in Spain. Yeah. So do you want to tell us about the about your program? Yeah. So the girls club I do with the other intern, it's basically actually let me step back for Myers Middle is a part of three schools that are community engagement schools that are under United Ways program. United Way is a nonprofit. I got my taxes filed for free last year by United Way. They do food drives. They give free furniture. If you are ever in need, contact United Way because they have the resources to help the community and to help you. If you need your rent, if you're struggling with one month, they can direct you to an organization that can help you cover that the resources they have are far beyond what I could imagine. So for my middle school is under that organization, they're technically a title one middle school, they need a lot of support. But the school is full of like life and kids who are ready to learn all of the all the fun things in middle school is full of, which I never thought I middle school was the worst years of my life. I never thought I would end up at one again, but like I'm loving it. So we have a lot of community engagement programs that we do at the middle school that deal with after school programs, before school programs, during school programs. So our girls club is a self-esteem club that we do every Tuesday during lunch. We basically have a group of five to ten girls, hang out, chat. We talk about like all life skills. We talk about peer pressure. We talk about time management. We talk about beauty, cosmetics, anything that you can think of relating to a teenager we talk about. And I feel like as if I'm like a mentor in the program. And the girls will really open up to you about their life stories. And it's amazing to hear the things that these middle schoolers are going through that I could never even imagine going through when I was in middle school. And I'm happy that I can just be there as a support system for them. I love the girls club, but during the girls club I noticed that there were groups, there were groups of girls where we would be in a group of like ten girls and two of at least two of them didn't speak English. And I was kind of baffled by the fact because I feel like at FGCU at least I don't really meet many people that like that aren't bilingual. You know or like at least in my middle school for example I was a minority. I was the majority. There wasn't a lot of kids in my middle school that didn't speak. Everyone spoke English and if not they spoke English in Spanish or they spoke English in Portuguese or they spoke English in Creole. So I was kind of baffled at the fact that there were students aged 12 to 14 that like were being put in these English classes but didn't have any fluency in English. So I went to my supervisor and I was like so what's up with this? And she's like yeah like one-third of our school English is their second language. And I'm like so what are those there's 600 kids at the school? I said so what are those 200 kids doing? Where's the support for them? And she said well we have one ESL teacher. ESL stands for English as a Second Language that is like the support for them. And I was like only one? So like do they just go to their classes? She's like yeah they just go to their regular classes. They just Google translate during class. They figure it out. Oh my god that must be so incredibly difficult. Yeah and I was like not even the academic factor but also the social factor. You know you're going into middle school which is already rough years of your life. You're going through changes. You're trying to make friends. You know you're trying to find your way into the world. And then on top of that you don't know what's going on in your classes. And then you can only really make friends with people who speak the same language as you. And I had undergone the same experience when I was in Spain. You know being in a culture that Spanish isn't my first language. But I was also in a study abroad program where I was around all kids who spoke English. You know what I mean? I wasn't put in a school where all kids spoke Spanish and I didn't speak any Spanish. But I've been there before where it's like an embarrassment. Where you freak out because you're like I don't know what's going on. And then beyond that it's a confidence thing. You know where you're even like afraid to speak up or you're afraid to like figure out the assignment. Not because you're not capable but because you don't understand. Because you don't understand. And when I'm the type of person when I see a problem I want to find a solution. So I knew I could probably I knew I could find volunteers that spoke Spanish and were able to come to the school and help out. So I took it into myself. I made a flyer. I made an ESL, Spanish, Creole, native speaker flyer. And I just networked with people. I actually set up a little booth at FGCU. And when people would pass by I'd be like hey I work for the service. I also work for the service learning department. But I'd be like hey bye-bye. It's these service learning opportunities. I was like also by the way do you speak Spanish? Right. Do you understand? I was like do you speak Spanish? And over time I got a few volunteers. Or whenever I would meet someone and they looked like they were from like a Latin American descent. I was like do you speak Spanish? And do you need volunteer hours? Come work for me. Or come volunteer with me. So right now I have six volunteers. Oh wow. Yeah. And I started this the first week of September. That was that was my next question. Yeah I started this. I started the idea the first week of September when I saw there was a need. And actually I was in the hospital last week for my tonsil surgery. And you know I'm chatting McGee with everyone. So I'm chatting with my CNA. And I'm like wait do you go to FGCU? And she's like yeah I do. And she was saying how she's Italian. And the thing I know about Italians or people that are from Europe is usually they speak multiple languages. And I was like by any chance do you speak Spanish? She's like yeah I do. I was like do you need volunteer hours? She's like yeah I do. I was like do you want to come volunteer at my ESL program at the middle school for an ESL program? So I found people from everywhere. From anywhere. I was just networking with people. Yeah and that's the best part too because like I know with specific languages, especially with Italian, there's certain dialects as well. So like to be able to vast the groups. Everybody's included. Everybody is represented. Yeah. And then another girl I found from tabling, another one of my friends had reached out to me. And this was kind of like a universe like fate thing. I remember the first day I had a volunteer come in and we were going into classrooms and we were talking to people and I like really saw, I thought the problem was a problem but I didn't realize how great the problem was when we went into the classroom. And there was a class size of 25 kids but only 10 of them were native English speakers and the rest were just figuring out on Google Translate. And I was like wow we need more volunteers. And that same day a girl that I studied abroad with that goes to FGCU, Danielle, she had reached out to me and was like hey I really need, I know you work for service learning, I really need volunteer hours. And I was like I got the perfect project for you. But right now I'm trying to revamp the program. I actually have a meeting about it tomorrow to make it more towards a mentorship program, especially for the kids who have just moved here. I have a list about 30 student, middle school students who moved to America in the past three months. Wow. Yeah and when I talk to girls I'm like hola, I'm like de donde eres? Where are you from? And I use my little broken Spanish to talk to them and I'm like how long have you lived in America for? And they're like I've only lived here for five months or I've only lived here for three months. And I explain to them I'm like you just moved here so it's going to be new and it's going to be a change but like you have to realize that these classes like in English don't correlate with your academic abilities. Yeah. You're at different standpoint and you just moved here like everything's so new. So my goal now with my program is to really make it a cultural exchange, make it a program that will like build confidence with these kids, especially kids who just who just moved here and are just trying to figure out what life in America. Right and just be like a kid you know make friends and get involved and stuff like that. Like it completely isolates them. All that breaks my heart. Yeah and I think about myself in middle school I would have loved a college kid coming in and being my friend and hanging out with me. I would have thought it was like the coolest thing ever. But this program that I started kind of came from my own idea and I know every internship is different but at least the internship that I have because it's a nonprofit, because we're working in a school setting I could bring up ideas and they could I could make my own ideas and expand from that compared to like having a structure every day. Oh absolutely. Which I think most internships are like that only because like you are an intern especially if you're unpaid like they're willing to like it's different compared to like working at a corporation. Yeah usually yeah because they'll have a set schedule or etc for you. With that what would you say has been like the most impactful part of your internship? I know we've probably touched on at least 18 but like yeah I wanted to just highlight one. One, the people I work with. The people I like I said being a teacher or being in a teacher setting everyone's so kind. At my internship all the women who work for the non for the nonprofit and the men who work for the nonprofit and I think just being a light in these kids like being a person that they can talk to. They tell me some really deep things about their lives and I'm just I'm like you just got to keep moving forward. I think being a support being a mentor there's nothing that in the world that makes me happier than helping someone out you know what I mean or like being a bright light in their day and they've had such an impact on me. I've learned so much about myself through my internship and my capabilities and like seeing an issue and seeing a problem and finding a solution and then finding out how to integrate that solution which it's all it's a whole developmental process you know I mean right changing switches all the time so yeah yeah yeah when you work with the people and for the people you yeah the changes get done it's just awesome yeah and I grew up in Lee County that's a school system we're in right now Cape Coral Fort Myers it's technically the Lee County school system and you know every school system has their troubles and I've realized that we do have we see problems we see solutions the problem is where we integrate these solutions yeah so it's it's a day by day thing but I'm glad I could be someone who has the ability to to solve to to implement these solutions and help these kids absolutely um and with the nonprofits like it is there any additional information that you want to touch on for our viewers because I know that the previous individuals that I interviewed didn't really do any work with they all did work through FGCU however they didn't do any work through nonprofits so yeah I think that at FGCU I know your majors connect you to your internship so entrepreneurship doesn't have an internship requirement um but I think that so like for example social work the other girl I work for or work with she got connected to the organization but if you're out there and you're looking for an internship you need to network with people that are in your realm of your career or your future career um so I would say do your research I mean I don't think I could have found that internship online I think it was fair I think it was me meeting that girl but there are a ton if you go on Eagle Link there are a ton of internships that you can apply for I know my friend was in digital media last year and she had just gone on Eagle Link and applied and most of the time if you want an internship or you're more likely to get an internship but it's unpaid because it's easy because they want the help but I also had a friend who works at Arthrex and she had gone through like an Arthrex course and done the interviews and she had entered she had interned there this summer but she found that like through online through like the programs so networking do your research online make your resume go use FGCU's resources career readiness resources you can go get tutoring or help with your resume and talk to people that's the most important thing I think talk to people in network explain your story be nosy like me and you'll end up with a great internship that you love absolutely and I know you just said with the entrepreneurship there is no requirements however can you take the course with that yeah so I applied my internship course from Spain to an internship credit gotcha and but that was the internship course in Spain I also had a class with it so I would like do a lot of reflection papers on my internship and then we would meet once a week compared to now this internship that I have is technically I just get volunteer out volunteer hours through it it's not the same as like having to log all the hours and whatnot right um but I will say if you are an entrepreneurship major talk to your teachers if you're not going to talk to the people because a lot of times people in your classes aren't gonna have business connections but talk to your teachers if you want not even an internship credit but if you want just like the experience because most teachers have a lot of connections and they can be like yeah I know this person who owns this business that wants help with this also when guest speakers come in go at the end of class go talk to them yeah go ask them for advice ask them if they need help like no one's gonna say no to free help one I mean the end goal is to get a paid internship but if you're looking for the experience that's gonna put you in the right direction an unpaid internship is the best way to go oh absolutely because that experience pays for itself yeah exactly you couldn't put it in better words I mean my internship is only one day a week but I also do work outside my internship that's related to it I know some internships are three to four days a week it really just depends but I'm really happy with it that's awesome and then you said you work outside it's connected is that the middle school or is this a separate job no yeah the work outside like my network me networking outside of the internship me making flyers I'm actually starting a backpack drive there's a huge need for backpacks I was in United Way at Fort Myers Middle Academy has a closet and has a food pantry a huge closet and a huge food pantry we get donations every week from like Walmart they're always are having like teacher appreciation drives we're like they get all these donations from different vendors throughout Southwest Florida and then teachers can come in and grab whatever they need Wow um and I noticed there were kids coming in who needed backpacks because you know you're in middle school you carry all these binders the only thing I carry in my backpack is like my hydro flask in my laptop yeah being in like elementary middle school yeah but these kids their backpacks break you know their parents don't always have the money to buy them a new backpack and I remember I was trying to find a kid a backpack and there was all these like great underarmor backpacks but none of them had straps I was like who donated all these backpacks besides my point I just realized I saw another need for backpacks so I'm starting a backpack drive and not making that flyer I did outside of my internship hours per se gotcha so it's the drive here through FTC or do I have a plug it I haven't posted it yet I haven't posted it yet but I think I'm gonna post it around school or just mostly post give it to my friends I mean we all have backpacks laying around in our house 800 bags that I can that I need to donate actually yeah so and you're donating it to a good cause and you know it's gonna go to a good home so that's another point where I saw a need and I because I'm an intern I could since I don't have specific job roles per se outside of like my already registered programs I was able to be like hey can I do the Starfighter everything like sure that would be great that's absolutely yeah that is incredible and then are you planning to do like more drives and additional or for right now no uh as of right now I graduate in December though I'm trying to I know I'm trying to figure out someone to take over my ESL program not to take it over per se but to be a point of contact if anyone else wants to volunteer but I'm just focusing on the ESL because I think that's a great need I love doing the girls group and I think both of those things combined are things that really relate to like my career readiness and like me wanting to teach English in Spain and me wanting to join the Peace Corps and be an English teacher there and I think your role as a teacher is never just being a teacher no but that's the same to say about any career like your role as a nurse is never just to be a nurse it's also to be a person that's there to emotionally support you and your role is being a business owner is never just selling a product oh yeah it's also marketing meeting people conferences dealing with investors the whole nine yards and I'm actually really glad that I did major in entrepreneurship instead of going down the educational route because I feel like I got a greater perspective on like business aspects absolutely and then you can apply that towards exactly absolutely so your your business per se will be teaching honestly I feel like in ten years from now I'm gonna have so many other experiences that I've undergone but like who knows what my if I do think I will create a business one day I just don't know what it would be but probably something teacher related as of right now I'm just like have I'm in my 20s I'm in my early 20s this is the time to try new things to take risks to go for the job where you're making no money right to be dirt broke and living off you know ramen noodles this is the time to like do those things but I think later in life I do see myself starting my own business yeah when you're you know established yeah but I'm in that crazy lifestyle now I know all about posts and free money evaluations and how to you know write up a business proposal how to present a business proposal anything related to like the entrepreneur sector and also the entrepreneurial mindset to create something that's your own like I've applied my entrepreneurial mindset to these programs that I am creating seeing a problem creating a solution although it's not for profit it's for nonprofit but it's it's applying the same concepts absolutely yeah so with that being said we are getting towards the end of our our time where we wrap it up is there anything else that you would like to highlight add leave us with there's two things one if you need volunteer hours United Way is a great organization to volunteer for and two I think I've already said this multiple times go out there and do experiences do not just sit in your dorm and hang out with your friends I mean that is always a good time but you're gonna have the best college experience if you go out and you try new things and you learn about new things and you're actually gonna learn a lot about yourself during the process so go out there and do stuff even if you're scared even if it because I'm a very extroverted person even if you're an introverted human being I promise you you will gain so much from the experience and you'll be able to look back and be like that was awesome I'm glad I did that absolutely yep and all it takes is one person's kindness in that room to like help you feel more comfortable so be that person too yeah be that person to be kind to other people and make them feel more comfortable yeah it's all a part of the process and it's crazy I started out with nursing and then I wanted to start a business and now I'm a teacher you know you're gonna go did you really go to college if you didn't change your major more than three times exactly or have any idea what you were doing exactly I first got here yeah no absolutely we'll have to have you back in like five years to see what you've been up to I know I will send it for an hour so yeah I hope I'm on more podcasts in the future to hear it and being able to like share my knowledge and experience and same goes for you I'm glad you have me on the show it was fun yes it's been a pleasure thank you so much well that being said that's our episode tune in next week to hear more internship experiences from our FGCU Eagles thank you all for listening and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day