Completing my thesis through YEA! has been a wonderful experience. My responsibilities are to help with the marketing aspect of YEA!, from helping to re-launch the website to writing letters of thanks for donations.
Working with YEA! I have gotten hands-on, real-life experience of how marketing works for a non-profit organization. Being able to actually physically do what I'm taught has made my learning experience all the more greater. Prior to this experience, I never knew how a non-profit organization such as YEA! would use marketing because we are only taught about marketing for-profit organizations.
I have also learned skills I thought I would never know how to do such as helping to create a website. Before working with YEA!, I had no idea how a website was even made. I have also met and worked with the board members, who have provided me mentorship and have taught me a lot. It's interesting to interact with various people in the community who hold such different positions and backgrounds, because in a classroom setting it is rare that students interact with anyone else but peers and professors.
Overall, my experience working with YEA! has been great. I have learned so many additional skills throughout my thesis project that I would have never learned in a classroom setting.
When I graduate in May, I will be prepared and ready to use my skills I have acquired through my experience with YEA! and my studies at USF.
Prior to working with YEA!, I never even knew webpages are made by entering 'code' into a program such as TSW WebCoder. The code has to be entered perfectly or else images won't load properly, spacing between paragraphs won't be right, etc.
After a lot of work and after the page has been sent to the web using FTP Commander it is already to be viewed on the internet. I never thought I'd ever know how to make a webpage, let alone help to launch an entire site. Working with Mrs. Strand and for YEA! has taught me so much more than I ever expected!
