3rd Times The Charm
This week I have been looking at options other museums have used to do little things for the visually impaired. Braile or 3D maps seem to be the first thing I can successfully do so I started to look at how that would happen. At the same time, I was given a new supervisor, again, and got the chance to talk to her about the work I did last semester with the app. She is very excited to work with me on this and it fits her position better than that of the historian. I happened to come into the history center at a time of transition, which is why I have had to have so many changes. It took a couple months to get the initial supervisor’s position filled, but its been great working with all of them. I discussed with her what I had done previously.
We also discussed the current assignment and agreed to meet the next week so we can come up with a list of things we can accomplish easy, what we can plan for by the end of this internship and what we can set up for the future. Getting the funding for some of the bigger ideas will be hard but possible as long as I can carefully set up the grant requests and contact the businesses that sell this technology.
As it stands right now, I am waiting to hear back from some of the haptic feedback glove companies to see if they do demonstrations that I can possibly set up. My idea is to get a dinner or something going, on short notice or pushed back to November, and get some possible donors in to see if they could fund the project without having to go through all the red tape of grant funding.
This runs alongside my role as a board member of the historical association, which now has me leading up a committee to improve membership and begin projects. So using all that momentum together will be critical to my mission across all my projects. One room, all the possible donors and some requests for funding and invitations to events for further relationship strengthening.
As an internship, I feel like this is pretty unique. When I was younger I wasn’t in the position to make anything happen, only do the task that I was given, but now I have a bit of control over what is going on and I can harness all the good will to help Polk County from many different avenues. It is very clear that the amount of people near my age are extremely small in this endeavor and I am sure that one day I will be the one having to do all the work, but for now I can learn while a “student” and begin to make the changes needed so that when I graduate the situation I am stepping into as a professional isn’t less than optimal.
The challenges are easier to face knowing that the people in charge know me for my abilities and knowledge of our history and my energy. I am allowed to think big and get the support I need to complete my tasks instead of just killing time until the semester ends.
