LHSI Ambassador

Although LHSI is only a year-long internship, my time with the program (fortunately) did not end in the Spring of 2022. Instead, I applied to become an ambassador! As a team of 4 ambassadors + Emiley, Brook, and Brandi, we work together to keep the wheels turning.

Fall 22-Spring 23: My ROLES

Supporting 20 Interns

This year, I have been assigned 20 interns to communicate with and support them throughout their professional development. I do that in a few ways: 

Social media & Communications

My main job outside of the interns is promoting LHSI via social media! Asia and I come up with different social media campaigns to post and encourage engagements from past, current, and future interns. It's an extremely fun job to experiment with and allows me to actually tap into my creative side. 



Recruitment

I also work with Nyah (who was also my ambassador when I was an intern!) for recruiting future interns. For my first semester, we reached out to professors and student organizations to present LHSI to them. I also got to table during the Weeks of Welcome events. It is intimidating at first to promote to strangers, but I got the hang of it! Next semester will be busy with recruiting since the new application is opening. As a team, we will be challenged to continue stepping outside of our comfort zones by putting on workshops and allowing applicants to ask questions in the office. 

Successes and Challenges 

Successes

Throughout my life, I focused on STEM rather than "STEAM". I was never really good at arts and crafts (or had the patience to figure it out), so I have not had many creative outlets. Turns out I CAN be creative, thanks to my job as an ambassador. I get to plan social media events with the team and spread information about LHSI with pretty graphics. I was worried that I wouldn't be good at it, but I think we're doing just fine :). 

Challenges 

I find connecting with the interns to be a challenging task right now. We act as a resource for the interns in the background. However, the bulk of their professional development is occurring at their internship sites. The interns have expressed interest in wanting to meet one another and the team, but they are not budging. Most interns ignore our emails or do not respond to our comments. I chalk it up to this being the first time that the interns have to balance numerous responsibilities. We can plan for fun interactive events for the Spring semester that they can join. 

Fall 2023-Spring 2024: Senior Ambassador!

When I was promoted to Senior Ambassador, I proposed to create, lead, and host LHSI's first Community-Building Events. Though the interns matter at their internship sites (which is important!!), nothing connects them other than the few program Zoom meetings and discussion posts. It can be lonely going through your first internship experience especially when juggling multiple responsibilities on top of it such as pre-med course loads and volunteering. That is why I proposed the Community-Building Events!

Fall 2023 Community Building Event.pptx

Fall Community-Building Event

The interns were to come once during the Fall to discuss time-management and stress-management techniques and hear from not only one another but also their ambassadors who were interns before. Interns expressed feeling relieved that they weren't alone in feeling like they were overwhelmed and stressed out of their minds.

Spring 2024 Community Building Event.pptx

Spring Community-Building Event

The Spring Community-Building Event was dedicated to practicing the techniques we learned in the fall by providing them with three options. 

It was interesting to see the options that each group of interns chose. 1 group would immediately get their laptops out and work on homework while another would get up to start coloring. I enjoyed providing the interns with a safe space to be productive alongside their fellow interns. 


On their exit ticket, I asked the interns on a scale of 1-10 (10 being highly recommended), how much would they recommend the Community-Building Events for future interns. The average ended up being 8.5/10!


Fingers crossed that future ambassadors keep this project alive :) 


Successes 

I found a lot of successes this year as Senior Ambassador. I found a lot of confidence as a leader and trusted my abilities to keep LHSI running smoothly. From delegating tasks to running my own event, I have really enjoyed becoming the Senior Ambassador and helping my fellow ambassadors grow into their new leadership roles. 


p.s: Valliei was my intern and then she became an ambassador <3 

Challenges

Fortunately, I have not faced many new challenges as senior ambassador. Like last year, we still deal with unresponsive interns and underdeveloped ePortfolios, but we handle those interns the best we can. My new challenge arose while hosting the Community-Building Events. I never expected to feel so emotionally drained after keeping track of scheduled interns, interns who rescheduled, interns who attended, and interns who did not schedule at all. As an introvert, hunting down all those interns all week drained my battery! I learned how to recharge myself to get myself back to baseline before feeling burnt out. I'm glad I learned that about myself early on instead of during medical school and getting too overwhelmed. New found respect for those in higher education!! 

Celebrations (woohoo)!

Valliei and I IN TOP 100

Not to be cheesy, but being on the ambassador side of LHSI tugs on my heartstrings sometimes. A special example is Valliei :). She was in my Intern Group my first year as an ambassador and she stood out for her detailed and intentional reflections. I convinced her to become an ambassador and she's just flourished in this leadership position. This year, we were both recognized as Top 100 Students and I couldn't be happier with this full-circle moment. 

1000(+) Interns! 

This year LHSI has had over 1000 interns through the program! To commemorate: we got a fancy new logo and a video to reflect on the amazingness that is LHSI.