When this internship finally found its feet, there was a consensus among my supervisor, Jane, and me, that I would find around 50 events for the timeline, translating to roughly an event a year. Jane was surprised by this, and happy with even half of that. As time went on, and the internship became more organized, this number jumped up to around 30 events per decade. 30 events per decade was quite a lot, but it never seemed as though it was undoable. This was the framework that was set out going forward in the internship, giving me a reference for how hard and specific I wanted to be when looking for events for the timeline.
As it stands, I am currently 3 years through 1980, meaning that I have completed two decades of the timeline, and am currently on the third. For the 1960s I have a collection of 17 events. Considering Erindale College opened in 1967, and that’s where the timeline began, 17 events for 3 years is way over the quota of 30 events for 10 years. For the 1970s, I have a total of 66 events, more than double what we had planned for the timeline. And lastly, I have 14 events for the first 3 years of 1980, once again much higher than the anticipated amount.
You may be thinking: the internship is going well, what could he possibly want to change about the way he’s working or his direction? Well let me explain exactly what I mean.The internship is now 5 months old. I began working on the timeline in late November. The time before that was intended for figuring out the logistics, the outline, and basically getting everything down for exactly how the timeline would work so that I could focus primarily on the content and finding the events. It took me two weeks to complete the 60’s. It took me 3 weeks to complete years 70 to 75. Then came the winter break, and after that, it took me another 3 weeks to complete 75 to 80. I forecast to be done the first half of 1980s by the end of January.
an image that I wish was included in the timeline, but wont be.
Simply put, in two months I have completed 16 years of the timeline. This means that I still have 34 years left, and two months left to complete them. This is my problem. On top of this, I have 6 reading heavy courses this semester, a job, and other commitments to attend too. So my approach to the internship needs to change.
Thus far, I have found many more events than are required for the timeline, this included smaller and less significant events than I would have liked. After talking to Jane, who said she will pick and choose which events to include (significant ones), it only makes sense for me to avoid these smaller events and focus on finding 30 significant events instead. This will greatly help me cut down on the time spent on this internship, while still keeping me within the required hours for the internship, and not going drastically over them (which I simply do not have the time for).
This blog post has been more a story, but it solidifies the importance of the skills I outlined in my first blog post, which can be found here.
An image that wont be included in the timeline, and probably shouldnt be.
Both images in this blog were taken from the Erindalian newspaper. Links to these images can be found here and here respetively.