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 Profile
of Joe Roller, Intern, Venture Outdoors, 8/06
by Joe Roller
When I started
my internship at Venture Outdoors, I realized right away that I
wasn’t going to learn everything. In fact, I was quite intimidated
by how much the organization gets done with less than ten employees.
I met with the marketing and communications people and prepared
myself to learn everything that they do. I was surprised yet again
when I realized I wouldn’t learn everything about what they’re
doing. They were all busy and unlike teachers, they had other things
to do rather than devoting all of their time to teaching me. However,
I quickly settled down and started to take everything one step at
a time. This was probably the biggest and most important lesson
that I learned while working for Venture Outdoors this summer. It’s
not college anymore, but instead it’s the real world. There
were no study groups or other students working on the same assignment
to gain insight from. This internship will make the transition to
work after college much easier for me because I know more what to
expect.
I expected to spend almost all of my time writing when I first began,
but as the term moved on I saw many of my responsibilities change.
I learned how to use the program Dreamweaver, which I had no intentions
of doing. I didn’t think that I would like it because it deals
with the internet and coding html language, but as I learned more
about it I found it very interesting and something that will be
very useful on my resume. Not only can I write content for a newsletter,
but now I have the ability to code
it and put it on the internet.
This internship also gave me a great perspective on the nonprofit
sector. I cannot say that all nonprofit organizations work the same
way, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of Venture Outdoors. Everything
was very laid back. There was no dress code or certain time of day
that I had to take lunch. It was common for all to call a question
out across the office to co-workers. The office opens at 9am, but
staff members were usually coming in until 10 or so. Hours were
made up by eating lunch in or staying a little late. I didn’t
expect anything like this, so I was pretty happy about it when I
got used to everything that happened in the office. I think it was
a great environment to work in because everyone knew that they had
to get their work done and they did it without clocking in or having
some executive breathing down their necks.
Furthermore,
I learned a great deal from my co-workers about myself and what
I would like to do. I realized that the reason that these people
didn’t need someone hanging over their shoulders and telling
them what to do all the time was because they are completely passionate
about what they do. Everyone in the office either rides a bike or
takes the bus to work, someone volunteers to clean the bathroom
every week, and someone always volunteers to take the recycled garbage
to the nearest recycling dumpster. Most of them would probably do
this job without getting paid if they could.
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