May 11th, 2026

Going into Co-op, I could not figure out a growth question. Every time I tried to come up with something it felt disingenuous, like something I was saying to fill in the requirements and not to actually consider doing. Which had me thinking: What even is a good growth question? In eighth grade we were told to make SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and time-sensitive) goals. I can't see anything within myself that I can reasonably progress towards in the month we're allotted. I personally have always struggled with measuring personal growth and can never really "notice" when I've changed. It's just a continuous experience that never really takes time to notice when a part of me is gone or has grown. I guess my growth question is How can I lay the groundwork for my future understanding of myself and the field of IT.

I'm working at San Diego Vision Academy with my mentor being Brett Alder. I chose this place to intern at because I wanted to step out of the high-tech system, an opportunity I didn't get before due to my own mistakes. What drew me here was a gentle push from Kurt to look around for other places to work and a general interest in diversifying my work experience. 

The outreach process was nerve racking due to the nature of contacting out of network but once I had an email chain going I was able to handle it pretty well. The only issue was remembering to check my emails and fill out the forms i needed to. I asked for help as I needed it. I'm writing this weeks after the intended due-date but I did forget to fill out all the required forms on a regular basis, but I eventually got it done.

SDGVA is a very laid back and relaxed working environment, the staff are friendly, the kids are pretty well behaved, and generally its a nice slow paced job. Despite my role being "IT", I was more often than not helping out with odd-jobs around the campus, a cable assessment here, a gum delivery there, hauling empty boxes to the recycling bins. the pace of the workplace, and anything that surprised you. Despite mostly being grade schoolers, these kids take better care of their computers than people MY age. Which either shows how well disciplined they are, or how irresponsible we are. It made my life easier of course but it was a shock to see how well maintained most computers were. Then again they haven't been operating 3 schools in one building over the last decade or so.

My growth question was honestly a bit of a hail mary, "How can I lay the groundwork for my future understanding of myself and the field of IT." It was the only thing I could think of, and I think part of the reason I chose it was because most of the tasks I was doing at my internship with the HTHMA IT team were repairs and installations. Not that those were negative experiences, its just that the breadth of my experience is geared towards fixing things but not necessarily the back-end networking stuff. I think in the next four weeks the most I can do to make visible progress towards this goal is just trying my hand at the networking end. My mentor has talked about it at length but I still feel like I don't fully understand it, so by the end of this I want to have a slightly more refined idea of how this field works beyond grafting computer parts together until they work, because presently all I really know is the hardware but not the software. 

Describe a specific moment from this week that connected to your growth question. Walk the reader through what happened, what you did in the moment, and what the result was. Be concrete. Vague observations like "I think I’m improving" are less useful than a specific story where you can point to what you tried and what happened next.

Was there a moment where you made progress? Was there a moment where you fell back into an old habit? Both are worth writing about. Describe what the workplace is asking of you that you did not fully anticipate. What is hardest about being there right now, and what does that tell you about the work you still need to do on your growth question?