IS22: Correspondence between Brentwood School and the Internship team

[Rabia2219]

Overview

We need to put all the email correspondence between Brentwood School and the Internship Team in one place.

Action Items

• Create a timeline format for everyone to use
• Bonnie go through emails and add to the time timeline (can be done at anytime)
• Go through internship account and add to the timeline (can be done at anytime, not dependent on Bonnie)
• Add new communications to the timeline as they go out and come in.
• Copy and paste each email into the comments in chronological order - reconsider later.

Resources/Instructions

Brentwood Contacts:
Emily Ellis
[email protected]
Flor Cruz
[email protected]

[Rabia2219]

Notes from call with Bonnie on 01/28/22:

In response to our email questions...Flor gave Bonnie the following answers during their phone conversation:

Q1) Last year the opportunities were hard to understand for the volunteers. Our offering included 3 different positions while the rest of the internships were just one position. Would it be possible to have two different listings for each of the positions?

Hack for LA Project Manager
Hack for LA Software Engineer

A: YES

Q2) Under compensation, we noticed you used the term voluntary. Because Code for America (our fiscal sponsor is a non-profit) the students can earn community service hours. Can we have the words "Community Service" where it currently says voluntary?

A: YES...connected Bonnie to the Director of Community Service at Brentwood

Q3) We also noticed that there is a question in the Brentwood School 2022 Summer Internship Application (Current Student) form
Q.The internship will be time-consuming. Please describe what other major time commitments you foresee having this coming summer, including extracurricular activities and sports, summer school, family trips, etc., and discuss how you will find time to be a successful, dedicated intern.

Will you be sharing their answer with us? We did find that one of the interns last year, really did not have enough attention and availability to devote to the internship, and consequently he learned less and had fewer interactions with Mentors because he was unavailable when they were.

A: YES...all application answers will be shared

Q4) Thank you for your response to our question about Emails. We have a follow-up question. Below is your response to our question:

Q: We had quite a hard time getting the students to respond to emails. The main reason seemed to be the lack of attention paid to their email accounts. We ended up texting them, but it was not as convenient. Is there something we can do to improve this beyond providing a calendar of expected communication dates?

A: The expectation is that students check their BWS email on a daily basis. We will be sure to emphasize the importance of responding to Internship Sponsors in a timely manner. Should you have any trouble getting in touch with specific students, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Followup Question: Does this include the summer (before and during the internship?)

A: YES...she also added that the students are supposed to be attending and answering all BWS emails...HackforLA can call or reach out to Emily/Flor at any time if we have any issues with the interns...

Q5) Also can you please let us know the deadline for us to submit a draft of our internship offerings for your website?

A: They would like something by Monday...even though they are extending the deadline to the 8th...

Other topics of discussion:

• AMA: Mid February would be a good time...so the interns have an idea about our program before they make a decision...she will get back with a date...
• In response to whether they would want other sponsors to be present...she preferred that it just be HackforLA this time...they would look into inviting more sponsors next time...
• Bonnie suggested that HackforLA could hold a talk with other potential sponsors and share our experiences of running an internship with them...she said 'we would be happy look into it further'

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Timeline

• HfLA reaches out to BWS to try to get students for service hours

where I left off

• Gmail page 5 with a search for bwscampus

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

1. Progress: "Go through about 241 emails to identify which are related to the communication with BWS (not the communication with the students during internship)
2. Blockers: Time availability
3. Availability: none right now, putting back into the prioritized backlog for when its a higher priority

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Sharon will reach out to Emily and Flor asking them for the link to the Survey

Hi Emily and Flor,

My name is Sharon, I am one of the PMs on the Hack for LA Internship team.

We have not received any emails from your team since May. Is everything ok?

Last year, after the internship program was over, there was a survey that you asked us to fill out. Do you want us to fill out anything for this year's summer interns?

Best,

[sharongupta1]

Email sent and received a response from Emily with the link to the survey.

@priyatalwar Email response and survey link:

Hi Sharon, thanks so much for following up with us. All is very well. We are less than one month into the new school year and it's been an unusually busy time!

Your email is very well timed. We actually plan on sending out a survey to internship sponsors at the beginning of next week. Thanks so much for your patience, we are eager to hear your feedback, as always!

If you'd like to get a head start on feedback, please feel free to fill out the form HERE. Thank you again for reaching out, we hope the program was a success for your company last summer. We will also follow up again next week. With gratitude, Emily

[priyatalwar]

@sharongupta1 can you please paste email response and the link to the survey here?

[sharongupta1]

Submitted survey on 2022-10-12 and replied to email chain:

Hi Emily,

Thank you for the update! We filled out the survey but wanted to point out that we provided less detail than last year around notable projects the interns worked on. We can schedule a call if you want to discuss this further and/or discuss lessons learned across multiple schools.

Best,
Sharon