11th Grade LINK Internship: The Fish Connection
Animas High School offers a unique program to their juniors. Leading Internships for New Knowledge sends juniors on three week internships in the field of their choice. During LINK, students have no regular classes as they spend 30-40 hours a week with mentors in the workplace, learning how to apply their skills outside the classroom.
My Internship was at The Fish Connection, an animal store that sells Fish, Reptiles, Rodents, and other exotic animals. I chose this internship due to my interest with exotic animals and my dream of working with them in the future.
https://www.fishconnectiononline.com/
https://www.fishconnectiononline.com/
Preparation and Anticipation
Spring Update (March 5th 2020): I made a decision to do my internship at The Fish Connection, I chose Fish Connection because it can help me learn about retail stores, and I will be able to take care of exotic reptiles and fish. My final thoughts before departing for my internship are that I am hopeful this will be a good learning experience and just a good experience in general. I am excited to meet the team over at the Fish Connection, I am excited to learn how to care for exotic reptiles and salt water fish, as well to build a relationship with my mentor. I am definitely a little nervous, but not too nervous because the people seem very cool and it seems it will be chill. The last thing I need to confirm are the exact dates, but as of now we decided on Late March- Early April.
Winter Update (Feb 20th, 2020): My internship is not 100% confirmed yet, but I have been in contact with a mentor. My internship would take place at The Fish Connection. All we have really done so far is talked about me doing an internship there, and my mentor said they do internships and I could totally do one with him. I have talked to Janae about this internship so far and she thinks it would be a good internship for me to do since there are not really any other animal stores in Durango and I do not think I will be traveling for it.
Fall Update: (Oct 8, 2019): My thoughts on doing an internship are sort of mixed at the moment. I am excited to do one, but at the same time it is just more work for me to do, but who knows it could be a very fun experience. The fields currently intriguing me are really only Animals and Photography. I am looking forward to doing something that may help me discover my career interests. I am concerned that I may do an internship in one of my fields, and then it could make me not want to work in that field because I discover things that I do not like. A couple of things I have already done to help find career interests are owning chickens, and I used to own horses and llamas etc, and I have taken a few photography/ graphic design classes in the past. What is next in my internship search is finding a good business/ person to do it with.
Internship Reflection
In my internship I worked a total of 90 hours. During this internship I definitely learned some important things about myself. Those being, I am sort of anti-social so I thought I would not be able to do customer service but, I am actually a lot better with the customer service than I thought I would be, and now I will be prepared for more customer service at my next job. Another important thing I learned about myself is that I can multi-task pretty well. For example I would have to be bagging fish and answering customer questions at the same time. During my internship I learned a lot about the professional world. One of the main things I took away about the professional world is that it is very very serious, and there is not a lot of joking around. I also learned that one small problem can lead to a bunch of big problems. For example, if a fish tank gets sick, and then that sickness is passed onto other fish tanks, it can kill all of the fish and there will be no inventory for people, so you would lose a lot of money, and then that can lead to losing your business. There were some points where I was challenged, like learning how to perfectly tie the bag to where the air will stay in and the fish wont die. Another thing that challenged me at first was when customers would ask questions about things when I first started. I would always just have to tell them to wait for my coworkers and it was always embarrassing. I discovered some strengths about myself as well. The main strength I discovered about myself was that I am actually pretty good at customer service, like I can keep them interested, I can be nice when they are being mean, and I can answer questions, I was just not expecting for my introverted self to be good at customer service. The internship has definitely helped change some plans. Before my internship I was super set on working with animals and all that, but after it I am more interested in other things like graphic design and things. It did not change because I had a bad experience, I just feel like maybe that could be my side job instead.
I would not say the internship really impacted me too much as a person, it just made me a little less introverted. My steps to accomplish my senior year goals are kind of just to go with the flow, because COVID has changed so much stuff, and to really try my hardest because it is my most important year. And my nexts steps for my future would just be to finish High School and go from there.
I would not say the internship really impacted me too much as a person, it just made me a little less introverted. My steps to accomplish my senior year goals are kind of just to go with the flow, because COVID has changed so much stuff, and to really try my hardest because it is my most important year. And my nexts steps for my future would just be to finish High School and go from there.