Week 14: Presenting!

 Welcome all to our 14th, and final week here in my Fall VHP internship!

Earlier today the UCF Public History Center held the Fall 2025 Internship Showcase. I, alongside my team, had the honor and privilege of presenting our work to our fellow interns in Public History, as well as the opportunity to learn more about what the other projects have entailed for interns and their teams throughout the semester. It was very enlightening to see how hard everyone has worked this semester for their projects, what results they've produced, what they've learned about their career paths, and the skills they have gained from their time in their internships. Seeing Riley's work at the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind was inspiring. Despite language barriers and difficulties in communicating, she was able to pick up enough sign language to communicate with her peers and leaders. I find language acquisition to be a very worthwhile effort, though it can be endlessly difficult, and I am so proud of her hard work!

My team members Jayden and Jessenia presented with me, and I got to hear more of their personal experiences here at the VHP. Both of them have worked tirelessly to reorganize, fulfill, and mend the documentation for the oral histories we have collected. Jessenia took away valuable insights into her career in archival work, and has amazing interpersonal skills -- not to mention the near dozen interviews she was able to complete documentation for. Jayden was one of the main people responsible for an overhaul of the VHP organization system, and did an amazing job. The VHP has a bright future ahead thanks to his work! Seeing their immense efforts, I wish I had pushed for a higher workload while I was here, though I know it was difficult to find a spot to fit me in due to my late entry in the program, alongside my own difficult scheduling. I undoubtedly gained some very useful skills in transcription, something I had essentially no experience with prior to my time here at the VHP. While working in customer service for so many years has certainly given me public speaking skills, properly advertising our work and networking within the Orlando Veteran community was intimidating, and provided me with a whole new arena to practice my interpersonal skills in! 

This experience has been so deeply rewarding and enriching. Even if my contribution may have been comparably small, I am so grateful for the opportunity I had here to learn from our community's veterans, volunteers, historians, and archivists. This has been an unforgettable semester, and I hope to see plenty more of my peers, team leaders, and mentors in the future. I will be closely watching their work in the future, knowing that their skills and passions will inevitably, and continuously, produce work of amazing quality! 

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