On my first day of work this Monday, I was excited and nervous for what was to come. Like so many young interns, I was ready to contribute, ready to learn and ready for the valuable experience I was about to embark on. Yet, there was something inside me, a sense of fear – as a leadership studies major I understand the many roles gender, age, and stereotypes can play in a work environment – and I was scared to be immediately put into a box like so many young women before me.\u00a0But, to my pleasant surprise, upon my first day of work I was quickly proved wrong. People were excited for my new, youthful outlook and the many contributions they hoped I would make. I felt valued by my peers, and challenged by my work environment. My first week’s experience contradicted so many things I believed from all the theories I’d learned in my studies – in the best way. I anticipated challenge due to my age and gender, but instead I have been embraced for the unique contributions I can make because of those things. I expected a system of ranks, but I quickly felt that my supervisors respected me as a peer rather than their subordinate. My experience this first week has prompted me to think about my leadership studies and their role in working environments in a different way – instead of being scared of becoming proof of a theory, I can embrace the challenges to help change those theories, and I feel that my internship at INTA is a supportive and nurturing environment that will aid me in my this mission, ultimately expanding my knowledge and understanding of the study of leadership in the working world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On my first day of work this Monday, I was excited and nervous for what was to come. Like so<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[76614,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-contributions","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/jepsoninternship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}