DIGITAL GYM CINEMA, these were the first words that greeted me on my first day at the Media Arts Center. I am so nervous that I can feel the sweat in my hands. A series of questions pop up in my mind, and I begin to go quite frantic. What if I mess up this whole internship?What if I am not good enough for the company or my mentor? I start to feel myself becoming numb and I start to doubt myself. I keep thinking, what if this turns out to be a bad day. Would interning at the Media Arts Center be one of the worst experience of my life? Then I started thinking about my future. Would they eventually fire me and cause me to have to find another place? Do I really want to be in the film industry for my future career? I started thinking this was a big mistake? Should I have applied somewhere else?. The worst question comes up in my mind. What if I don’t learn anything?? I took a mental break for a second, and I start to adjust myself again. No, I will do just fine, and I am going to have fun. That is when I snap myself out of my frantic state. In a less melodramatic way I go inside the building. I was soon greeted by a woman at the front desk and she asked me if I was an intern. I replied “yes” feeling a little bit more confidence in myself. She told me I could go upstairs and start working if I wanted to. This made me a little confused for a second. I did not expect to start working already. However, I knew deep down inside that this was a good start. I had a gut feeling that everything will be all right, and I felt more confident in myself that I was going to do well. I knew that exact moment that this was a beginning of a new experience.
The first obstacle that I had face was the stairs. Stairs can be very intimidating. I associate them with something unexpected, and it creates tension for what is to come next. It reminds me of working at So Cal Paint, this was my aunt’s business, and it was a place where people could get their old cars fix or modified. I remember walking up the stairs having the same feelings as I have now. It was a nice summer job, I had my own office and I liked working with my grandmother and my aunt. This was going to be different and I would have to make sure to quickly adapt this new environment. These people are strangers for all I know, and they are probably going to expect a little bit more out of me. It could be bad or a good experience. All I know is that it is only three weeks, and I just need to survive, and remember to complete my school assignments. I thought to myself it is going to be a new experience, but even if it’s a challenge I will be able to break through and succeed. I feel the weight drag on with each step, it is not easy to keep yourself confident when you are nervous. Sometimes you just have to keep calm to continue moving forward to the next step. It is part of taking chances.
When I reached the final step, I was greeted by Ethan, the executive director at the Media Arts Center. He was one of the founders of the Media Arts Center of San Diego, and introduced the Latino Film festival. He was a very nice and well mannered man, and quickly gave me my first job emailing potential professors who would be interested in our upcoming movies. He showed me to my intern room. This is when I met the first High Tech High intern Alex Awwad. Alex was one of the first interns that I met and we quickly became good friends. Other interns came during that day too, they were Alana, Abril, Jasmine and Cartei. During this first day I quickly became close to them. Since they were High Tech High students I could relate with them about school. Especially Alana because we both came from the same school, and we had to complete the same school assignments as well as our internship project. When I am stuck in a room with people I usually bond with them. I like being around them and I could be myself. In high school I work with other people in projects and school assignments. However, compared to working at the Media Arts Center, it was different experience. Since I work alongside my interns for so long we know each other very well. At the end of the day even when I am exhausted I always have a smile on my face because I know that my fellow interns will always be there for me.
On Friday of that week, one of my employees name Moises had me be in charge of putting up the posters. Since we did not have full length posters for all the movies, we had to print out fillers of the movies and stick them up the poster boards. Moises showed me how he wanted them to look and gave me the fillers of paper and tape. Even though it was pretty much a small job and would do little to benefit the company. It was important to me because I went through many trials and errors while putting up the posters. I was helping advertise the films and it was something that I would always wanted to do when I was a kid. As a ten year old boy, one of my dreams would be becoming a big director and creating my own movies to audiences around the world. Putting up posters is not exactly big, but it made that tiny experience personal to me and I now can say I help put up movie posters. It took me about a couple of hours to finish putting up the posters, and I received compliment from my employees that it looked nice. I like helping the organization with their work, and I was proud of my successful mission. I know it is crazy to think that this is one of the most important things I enjoyed during my internship, but all the small things can sometimes become bigger things.
During that same day, Amanda had a small session with the interns about how to work the front desk. She went over how to answer phone calls, transferring calls to a certain staff member, transferring calls to voicemail, and taking down a person’s number so the organization can call them back. She also taught us how to answer questions about movie tickets, volunteering for the Latino Film Festival, and information about the film classes. Amanda then stated that she would create a cheat sheet for the front desk next week, and quickly the session ended. This seem really complicated to me and I was afraid of taking the front desk. However, when I was in charge I realize it was not so bad. I quickly got used to being in the front desk that it made me feel more confident in myself. I felt like I knew what to expect during my shift at the front desk. I was not always perfect, there were some instances where I could have done better or done differently next time. Perfection didn’t matter because I learned to fix these mistakes and it helped me grow as an individual. I got better in speaking and communicating with other people, and I think it is one of the most essential parts I can take from my internship.
These last three weeks of internship has been a great experience. Hopefully I will be able to take this internship experience and apply it to my school and eventually my future career. The main thing that I will keep in mind is to be optimistic and have a good mindset that will keep me ahead in life. I will have challenges that seem impossible, however, overcoming a challenge takes time and a lot of determination. I want to say thank you to my mentor Amanda Barcena, executive director Ethan Van Thillo, Moises and all the other interns. Thank you for helping me succeed to become a better person in life.