Introduction

 

            During the summer of 2013, I was given the opportunity to intern with the FITlife Project, centered in Hanover, PA. While working for them, I was directly supervised by Nick Zeigler, the leader, founder, and producer for the FITlife Project. Given the rather small size of the organization, I was the sole intern for the summer and worked right alongside Nick on a regular basis. Moreover, since I was often working with Nick, I became a crucial component of the FITlife Project, spearheading projects and motivating people to volunteer their time and efforts to the group.

 

            The FITlife Project functions as an LLC. Being that it is affiliated with CrossFit, the group primarily seeks to demonstrate how CrossFit has positively affected not only themselves, but also a number of people that have come from rather difficult situations. In all, the group seeks to use videos as their primary medium for challenging beginner athletes to adopt a healthier and more invigorating lifestyle, while calling more active athletes to help facilitate that transition. Furthermore, the FITlife Project promotes a very supportive community and believes that fitness is for everyone, regardless of any sort of mental or physical limitations, which it seeks to convey through its miniature online documentary series.

 

            When I started my internship, I came up with two learning objectives that Michael Blount, my supervisor at Messiah College, approved for me to work on. The first one was to learn how to effectively shoot a miniature documentary series. Although I had plenty of experience around the camera and in post-production, prior to the start of my internship, I had very little experience with filming in a documentary style, especially in a more professional environment. The second learning objective was to become a more proficient web designer. Once again, despite my “classroom understanding” of web development, I had not really tested my knowledge in web design with a real-world client. Nevertheless, through careful observation and active involvement with several professionals, I can confidently claim that I have successfully made progress on and accomplished the objectives that I have briefly outlined above.

 

 

Work/Projects

 

            While working for the FITlife Project, I was assigned a number of projects and responsibilities. In the first few weeks, my biggest project was redesigning the FITlife Project’s website to be something fresh and simple. Given that the site was built with WordPress, I spent several hours researching various templates and themes that WordPress offered, as well as watching videos and reading forums that provided recommendations on how to build a site that met the criteria that Nick had given to me. After presenting my research to Nick, I decided to create a responsive site with a fluid grid system, which would enable the website to easily adapt to mobile devices or other viewing platforms. I then began reorganizing pages and content based on the new theme that we opted to utilize. In addition, I researched various plugins that I thought could visually strengthen the site and decided to use several, such as the “Connections” plugin, which allowed us to build a far more organized “Meet the FITlife Team” page. Beyond that, I kept in regular communication with Jonathan Heyman, a web designer that Nick directed me to, and sought his advice on a number of issues pertaining to displaying the entire blog for posts associated with a specific category on one page, as well as paginating pages to eliminate the lengthy loading time of pages.

 

            In addition to my responsibilities with redesigning the FITlife Project’s website, I also inherited the duty of regularly updating the site with new content, which I received from several different people. This often came in the form of videos, instructions for workout routines, and short articles written about whatever the FITlife Project deemed appropriate. Given the large amount of video content, I also had to manage the FITlife Project’s YouTube account and frequently upload short clips that Sheron Smith took from her Special Warriors program at CrossFit Hanover.

 

            Another project that I was responsible for was the filming of a number of kids in Sheron Smith’s Special Warriors program. For each kid, I filmed their entire workout session and then a brief interview with the parents of the children. Ultimately, these shots will be used as approximately five-minute episodes for season two of the FITlife Project, which will revolve exclusively around the Special Warriors program.

 

            Lastly, I assisted the FITlife Project in editing clips that they had shot for season one last summer. Given the lengthy delay in releasing these episodes from season one, my work on them was of utmost importance in the final weeks of my internship. After receiving professional equipment and some advice from Dean Vaccher, a videographer that Nick directed me to, I spent a large amount of my time in Final Cut Pro, skimming through footage and laying out a basic skeleton for each episode, so that Dean and I could then touch each one up with ease. Not only did this experience teach me invaluable tools for how to use Final Cut Pro, it also helped me to be more confident in my decision-making, direct in my communication, and patient when waiting for responses from coworkers.

 

 

Learning

 

            When I started this internship, I did not feel very comfortable in the workplace or confident in my skills, but as the end of my twelve weeks rapidly closes in, I certainly believe that I have acquired many new skills and abilities, as well as a heightened sense of self-confidence, that will sufficiently prepare me for future areas of employment. Although I have learned a good deal through my time with the FITlife Project, one of the things that had the biggest impact on me was learning how to work from home on my own time. As I mentioned in my second reflective paper, one of the competencies that I needed to work on was balancing work and life, and fortunately, through my experience with the internship, I found that I could successfully work for a block of several hours and then unwind by enjoying some personal time before returning to work. In addition, as I quickly found out from my internship, I wasn’t just some secondary component to the organization that was only watching and learning how to develop skills needed for professionals in my field, but instead was the professional in my field actively using my skills and abilities. This really boosted the confidence I had in my skills as a videographer, editing, and web designer, and makes me realize that I should continue to actively pursue a career in this line of work.

 

            As for professional skills that I have learned, I now know much more about how to make a site with WordPress and customize various elements by altering its source files, how to edit quickly in Final Cut Pro, how to film with external microphones, how to process clips for editing, and how to appropriately interact and communicate with fellow coworkers. However, perhaps most importantly, I have learned the value of self-directed learning. When a question or problem needed to be resolved, although I might not have had a solution for it right away, I could almost certainly obtain it if I used the tools that I had before me and was patient in my search. While this was not something that I easily adjusted to, it eventually developed into a powerful learning approach that greatly improved my performance in the workplace, and will certainly be something that I will continue to utilize in future areas of employment.

 

 

Future Plans

 

            As I have previously indicated, this experience has really helped me formulate future plans for both my study and work. Although I went into my internship believing that I would be ill-equipped to sufficiently complete all the tasks I was given, I will leave the internship knowing that I can succeed in a film or web development career if I remain focused and confident. Moreover, I really enjoyed the majority of work that I had to do for the FITlife Project, which reaffirms my thoughts on pursuing such work in a full-time position.

 

            With that said, I still have plenty of skills that I need to learn. While I do have a decent understanding of filming and web development, there are still many things that I don’t currently know, and there will probably still be many things that I won’t know indefinitely. For this reason, I have really come to value self-directed learning. Certainly the knowledge that I have received in the classroom has been extremely beneficial, but I now realize more than ever that I should never quit pursuing additional knowledge, especially given the rapid amount of technological advancement in my field of study. As for the imminent future though, I really want to focus on my last year of college and acquire more technical skills related to my knowledge of computers.

 

            In regards to my progress on the two competencies that I identified as ones I need to work on in my second reflective paper, I believe that I have certainly made progress towards the acquisition of both managing time and priorities, and balancing work and life. Although both competencies certainly challenged me given that my internship was over the summer and most of my hours came from working at home, I managed to keep focused and get all the work done that was expected from me. Nevertheless, it was at times very difficult to discipline myself with the available time that I had and divvy my attention to various projects occurring simultaneously in the midst of a constant barrage of summer distractions. With so much going on, while I was very successful at keeping up with all my work in a week, I wasn’t as fast at responding to issues raised by my internship as I would like to be, so I definitely have some room for improving my management of time and priorities. As for balancing work and life, despite it being rather difficult for me to differentiate between the two (because of the amount of time I spent working from home), I would say that I demonstrated definite improvement in this area. Despite additional paid work and an online class factoring into my busy weeks with the FITlife Project, I still managed to find free time to devote to my social life and personal time.

 

 

Preparation/Recommendations
 

            Without a doubt, several of my courses at Messiah College have contributed to my capabilities for thinking critically and solving problems. In addition, through my internship, I was able to observe and better comprehend several issues or concepts brought up in many of my classes. In terms of specific courses that were very beneficial to my internship experience, I was very grateful to have taken Web Development: Client Side and Digital Editing. From these classes, I learned a lot of the technical aspects that were demanded of me when constructing and redesigning the FITlife Project’s website, and editing their footage for seasons one and two of their miniature documentary series. If I were to recommend anything to my academic departments for Computer & Information Science and Digital Media, it would be to encourage students to get an internship earlier in their academic career to prepare them for additional experiences with the professional workplace environment. In addition, I would recommend that professors give more tutorials on tools like WordPress, rather than exclusively teach straight coding for a website (since more clients seem to be taking this route), and that more application courses should be offered. As my experience with Database Applications demonstrated to me, these courses are very useful when transitioning concepts learned in the classroom to skills used in the workplace, which is extremely useful in the academic environment.