The Teens Lead Internship Experience
Monique Sumner
Cohort II of the Neuse Regional Libraries’ Teens Lead intern program is now underway; teen interns have the opportunity to develop life skills and immerse themselves in real-life work experiences through community volunteering. Last month, Head of Youth Services shared excerpts from a blog developed during Cohort I by Greene County Public Library intern Kaylee Sugg. During this same cohort, McKenzie McCoy created a blog to share her internship experience with fellow teen interns Layla Flores and Kevonte Parks, who served together at the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library. McKenzie chose to write about and photograph her experiences creating her STEM project as part of the program's requirements. Here are a few of McKenzie’s thoughts on her experience as a teen intern:
Honestly, everyone who works at the library is friendly, and I don’t feel as out of place as I thought I would. Even though I went to the library a lot to get books before the internship, I’m sort of wishing I went to some of the programs or even volunteered at the library earlier. I also got to do things I never thought I would do, like ride in the Digital Resource Rover, which sort of made me feel like Ms. Frizzle. I got to work at the desk in the Youth Services department, which was awesome because when I was little I used to dream of being a librarian, which made Little Me’s heart happy.
McKenzie also interviewed her fellow interns to get insight into what they created for each of their intern projects. She writes:
Layla chose creating a library program as her project and created a Movie-Inspired Cooking Class. Her project entailed brainstorming ideas that are targeted toward teens and researching recipes inspired by movies. … A couple of weeks after the mock program, she led the final program on December 5th. Here are Layla's thoughts on the program: “I was feeling stressed while preparing everything, but once I started interacting with the participants, I began to have fun and stopped thinking so much about what to do. The program went very well; many more people came than expected.”
Kevonte chose to make an advertisement video, and he also had to create a
logo design for his video. He decided to make the advertisement video because he loves to talk. When he heard an advertisement video was one of the options for the final project, he thought, “What is a better way to advertise than a tour of everything that may be interesting to teens that we have at the library?” Kevonte first made a list of what he wanted to tour, such as the teen area, study rooms, etc., and then he made a plan on how to make the video flow smoothly and look well put together. Kevonte filmed a practice video, and once he was satisfied with his plan, he made the final video a couple of weeks later. Here are Kevonte’s thoughts on his project. “ This project was an amazing experience to learn more about the library. This project was funny, cool, and inspiring. The bloopers and mistakes were probably the funniest thing about this project, (haha),, but, I loved my project and loved being an intern.”
Cohort II is in session through the remainder of the second semester of the 2024-2025 school year;; we will continue to offer this program in future school semesters. For more information on how to apply, please call 252-527-7066, Ext. 133.
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