My first week of Focus:HOPE has been full of learning about my project and the organization as a whole. Walking in on the first day, I began to understand just how big the organization was. With cubicles, a receptionist table, and many buildings, FocusHOPE definitely felt more like a small corporate business than a non-profit organization. The first day, I was quickly set up with my own corner of the cubicle and given my own phone number and email address (jerry.chen@focushope.edu) which was pretty cool. In a nutshell, what I will be doing with Focus:HOPE this summer is to help them organize and create a physical and web-based medium for their previous research studies. My supervisors are with the Hope Village Initiative, a program that partners with other structures of Focus HOPE in order to create a safe educated community for the 2-3 miles surrounding campus. My first day, I was not able to meet with my supervisor until the end of the day, so I just read through a lot of the research I would be organizing and planning out my schedule of tasks. Reading through the articles were very interesting because I could see the complexity of each research project. However, I did not at first know if these studies actually had any impact. It was not until the next day, when I attended a Hope Team meeting that I was exposed to the different areas of Fous Hope. After that meeting, I was able to see just how much each research/consulting project has helped Focus HOPE grow and expand in their mission.
For my weekly deliverables, I have been mostly sorting older files and reading/summarizing them, in the hopes of being able to format a physical, organized copy of all the research done. This area has been comfortable for me, as I am familiar with the software to do all of this. However, as it gets more to the creative process, I hope that I will be able to present a visually attractive final work as well as acquaint myself with the appropriate programs to do so.
