By Issy Cochran, DLINQ Lead Intern/Peer Mentor
Introduction
For my personal inquiry, I decided to reflect on my transition into the Lead Intern position and ask if there are ways I can improve the process. I became Lead Intern this past Fall ‘21 and had only had intern experience for the previous summer, so I was very much still getting to know DLINQ and learning what the Lead Intern is responsible for. For the most part, the switch from Intern to Lead Intern is fairly simple, meaning that as an Intern, I already had the skills and knowledge needed for most of the additional expectations. But, as Lead Intern, I was now in charge of managing and updating the DLINQ Internship site, which required additional knowledge and skills I did not yet have. I solved this problem by reaching out to the previous Lead Intern, Masud Lewis, and met with him so he could teach me about his system. After reflecting on this process, I decided to make a guide to help future Lead Interns learn all they need to know about this specific task.
Explanation of the Guide
I made three different sections, each containing detailed information about three larger tasks required to maintain the internship site.
The first section reviews the document we use to record all intern profiles, new and old. I explain what the Lead Intern should do at the beginning of each term with the document, basically covering how it should be maintained, and explanations of how it is made so that they understand what needs to be updated. I also cover the way it uses HTML to create links within the document, in order for the table of contents to function properly.
The second section lays out all of the steps, along with visuals, for how to edit each interns profile photo.
Finally, the last section teaches the Lead Intern, also with visuals, how to add each intern’s profile to the website.
Sneak Peak from the Editing Profiles Section
| Instructions | Image |
|---|---|
| Starting in this folder, download the photo you are working on, then share it via airdrop to your iPad. |  |
| On your iPad, go to the photo and send it to Procreate |  |
| Open up Procreate and Select the photo you are editing. Create a new layer by clicking the LAYERS icon and selecting the plus icon. |  |
| Click on the brush icon, select Calligraphy, and select Monoline |  |
| We are going to start with outlining the face/hair. Click the color icon, type in the “hexadecimal” area which color you want. (I am doing yellow in this case). |  |
| Draw an outline around the face |  |
| Draw an outline around the hair, splitting it in half from the persons part |  |
| Select the snake/like symbol |  |
| Select the settings Automatic and Color Fill, then select the area inside your outline. Then deselect that snake/like symbol. |  |
Reflections
I really enjoyed completing this personal inquiry, and I am so glad that I know it will be useful to future Lead Interns. Overall, the experience was very rewarding because this guide will also serve to help me, as without the guide it would take me a while to remember all the steps and how everything works, but now I too have a useful tool to help me with the Lead Intern Role. If you work for DLINQ and would like to see the full document, here is the link.
Feature photo by Issy Cochran, of Yaqi Huang