5 months into my internship at Apps for Good

It’s been 5 months since I started my internship at Apps for Good as Education & Youth Support Assistant. I finally feel as if I’ve got some idea of my role, although I still sometimes wake up in the morning and say to myself “what am I doing today?”. But even then I’m still thoroughly enjoying my time at Apps for Good because the team is really supportive and have pushed me to make the most of the opportunity and want to try harder.

Working remotely is something that I have had to get used to and have had to try a bunch of different working styles until I found one that works for me. For example, I have learnt that I have to give myself regular breaks or else I won't be able to pay attention and so I make sure that after 30 minutes of work, I take a 5 minute break so my brain can refresh.

I’ve always struggled with literacy but anything with numbers I have excelled at and with Apps for Good I’ve been able to put that to good use. I enjoy doing all the metrics as I feel like I am able to do them to a good standard. I have also been communicating with teachers through the use of our sign-up survey and recently I’ve been working on the Expert Feedback Tool, which allows young people to get feedback from our volunteering community and it’s been great to add something new to my list of things to do as well as learn how the volunteers work with Apps for Good’s students..

The opportunity that I have been the most proud of is the chance to help and work closely with the creation of the Youth Advisory Board (YAB). I am happy to say that my ideas and suggestions for how we engage the Board have been incorporated and I have been able to shape how the board is facilitated and managed. The process of helping the team create the YAB from scratch and engage the young people has also been incredibly rewarding.

As the internship is supported by the Jack Petchey Foundation, this has provided me with opportunities to network with the other Jack Petchey Foundation interns through the various workshops that have taken place. Most recently, helping to build confidence in public speaking, which is something that I’m not really comfortable with. The Jack Petchey Foundation workshops have been enjoyable and helpful in providing me with experiences and skill sets that will be useful for my ongoing professional development. Being supported by the Foundation has also enabled me to get a professional mentor, which continues to help me to shape and develop my plans for the future and what I need to do to make them a reality.

My role at Apps for Good has been a great experience and helped me get a better understanding of the world of work and the opportunities available to me as well as helped me to realise what career path I want to go into after the internship has finished. Using the bursary money that I have been provided for training, I plan to get a full BASI level 1 teaching qualification in snowboarding and use this training to have a career as a snowboarding instructor so I can continue to support young people from all backgrounds who want to snowboard. Snowboarding has been a passion that I fostered before the internship when I worked with Snow-Camp, a youth charity based in London as a volunteer instructor and continued to develop the skills I learnt even when I finished. I also have plans to take part in other training opportunities, including first aid, social media marketing and negotiations training as I want to use this opportunity to continue to develop transferable skills that will help me in my current role at Apps for Good and beyond.