Based off his passion in Public and International Relations, senior Mohammad Aziz sees his new profound internship as a gateway to dive deeper into the career path of his dreams. With lights and microphones on standby, he embraces a hidden passion during his internship in Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Office of Communications.
Being an Academy of Finance student at Coral Gables Senior High, it is mandatory to do an internship and get certified by the National Academy Foundation. Aziz received this internship through the Summer Youth Internship Program, where he applied for district office and got accepted, later being assigned to the OOC where he interned from July 3 to Aug. 7.
The strenuous SYIP application process requires applicants to take an online pre-course about internships that explains the basics on job experience. Once registered, applicants begin applying to their chosen places of work. With last minute applications, Aziz had a wide array of options when it came to accepting job offers.
Aziz describes himself as a very shy person, specifically when taking on his duties as Media Relations Intern for OOC. Most of the time he avoids interacting with those around him, being extremely reserved around his teachers and fellow peers. This made it difficult to communicate and make friends. This internship served as a push in the right direction, getting him out of his comfort zone.
Despite this, he was received with open arms, working alongside his coworkers who were friendly and humorous. Aziz easily got along with them and they instantly bonded. One of his coworkers in particular,Gabrielle Acosta, served as his mentor, showing him the ropes of their work force.
“Starting on the first day I got exposed to the work environment where everyone says hi to you even if you’re in the elevator and don’t know each other. People sparked conversations really easily with each other and most importantly I was forced to socialize more than I ever have. From meeting people like the superintendent to news reporters, camera crew, people in communications and other departments I started to become a lot less scared to talk and interact with people,” senior Aziz said.
I learned to question the news sources I listen to and what type of biases they have, being left center, right center, and neutral. Understanding news sources and their bias has helped me think on my daily life, now when I read news I think about it from a completely different perspective,”
— senior Mohammad Aziz
After clocking in, café con leche and breakfast in hand, Aziz was prepared to receive his assignments for the day. He would meet with his supervisor every week to receive updates on the details of his assignments, which would regularly pertain to media and production. While the media team was covering an event, he would be on site helping the camera man and reporter, keeping things in check. Interestingly enough, Aziz also took on the tedious task 0f organizing MDCPS’ public data, making it accessible through his self-built data bases.
“One instance of a citizen informations case was when a local news reporter/writer was looking into Miami Fire Rescue calls made in schools regarding a certain medical emergency. Basically the data from the MFR was very messy and seemed to have errors in the way it was being presented, so I helped organize the data from the MFR into a format on Excel sheets for the different categories of emergencies. I simply organized the data in a way that would make sense to the viewer, ” senior Aziz said.
The last week of his internship was eventful as he worked two days back to back at South West Senior High, with each day encapsulating a different student story. The first feature story was about a reporter who graduated 15 years ago and gave her favorite teacher a surprise. The second highlighted a student and her achievements in high school thus far. This scenario stood out to him in particular due to the fact that he does not usually go assist on the same site everyday, allowing him to build stronger connections with the school staff.
“One thing that really helped me was that we always had lunch together. They would order their food and I would order mine, sometimes we would decide on something to eat together. Everyone would sit together and have lunch for 30 minutes having a good time laughing and joking around about stuff in the office. I feel like I connected with them a lot. I actually still keep in contact with them,” senior Aziz said.
Aziz was never really interested in communications, but the exposure of this internship has changed his perspective. He especially enjoyed being on site, helping in person and managing the workplace. This eye-opening experience is something that will stick with Aziz for years to come, giving him a foundation to build off when looking at careers and jobs.
