My First Weekly Reflection

May 4, 2019

This first week of senior project was nothing like I was expecting. In the beginning of the week, I was nervous about making mistakes and just letting people down. My fears instantly washed away as I began to get busy, started to get used to the schedule, and figured out the way things work. This week I’ve learned about how important spending time with the animals is so they can have better socialization skills which can lead to a higher probability of getting adopted. I’ve also learned about how much work goes into different fundraisers and events. Seeing my mentor and many others work tirelessly to get everything perfect for these events just made me want to strive for that perfection as I helped them.
    Everyday, so far, I have enjoyed the tasks I’ve had to help with. I’ve gotten the chance to be near kids, be near the animals, and even the paperwork wasn’t too stressful. After doing the paperwork, I realized that I’m very good at organizing which has been a useful tool through the process. I think most of the surprises I’ve faced have been about how incredibly understanding and kind everyone that works at the SPCA are. There are not many places that have so many amazing people that are also motivated and driven to help a serious cause.
    I will benefit from this week's activities from an awareness and education standpoint. Now that I’ll be attending college soon, I am wanting to become more active in creating awareness on serious topics such as animal cruelty. I will be majoring in Marine Science which has a lot to do with educating about the animals that live in that ecosystem and what we can do to protect them from dangerous and harmful materials. Also, the paperwork and organization can be really useful for any work setting in my future.
    What I have done this week has already played a big part in my original goals from the project. One of my goals was to learn about the work that goes into fundraising and the one that I just did today took a lot of effort. One of my other goals was to help with animal care which is what I have mostly been doing this week with walking dogs, any kind of pet socializing, cleaning cat cages, etc. One of my last goal activities was taking videos for documenting animal and human interaction which I began to do on Friday, but they had to be re-done because I had to have the phone a certain way.

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