Culminating Blog Reflection

Throughout the course of completing my Capstone project I encountered challenges. One of the challenges I faced was trying to figure out what I wanted to do my project on. I have many interests but I had to narrow it down to the things I do on an everyday basis. The one I chose was clothing, clothing is something that is a part of my life eveyday and is an interesting topic to me. Since my topic was on clothing I decided to research my paper on the history of textiles. Doing the research was pretty easy but I think that was because I found the subject interesting and I felt that I needed to know textiles if I were to go into the clothing industry. I learned that if you find something that you like or have interest in its easy to do work for that interest. You start liking doing work on for that interest and it doesn't feel like work at times.

Another challenge I faced during the time I spent on my Capstone Project was finding a mentor. In the beginning I thought it would be easy finding a mentor for clothing since there are a lot of retail clothing stores I could intern for. Though it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I called a couple stores and even went to the stores in person and asked if I could intern for them for my project but when I gave them my contact information to get back to me they never called or emailed me about the internship. I figured that they probably didn't need an intern or they just didn't want me to work for them. It was frustrating trying to find a mentor but I ended up finding one just before it was too late from someone I could have asked in the beginning but never thought of it. My mom saw that I needed a mentor and saw my frustration. She told me that she had a friend that owned a retail store that sold more than clothes. I would have never thought that my mentor would come from a source that was so close to me while I was going around looking for a mentor I could have just asked my mom. Sometimes you don't need to go as far as you think to find the answer to something the answer to your troubles can be found somewhere as close as someone living with you.

After completing my Capstone Project I have learned many things. I have learned to be more organized from my mentor because if your organized, when you have your own store its easy to get things you need and having and organized store is more appealing to the public than one that has things everywhere. Another thing that I gained was confidence in myself. I worked at a store where I helped people and answered their questions and to do that I couldn't be shy and I had to be confident in myself. If I was shy and unconfident I would be able to help them because I wouldn't think I knew the answer to their questions then I would end up freezing up and that would not only make me look bad but it would make the store look bad hiring workers that didn't even know anything. Starting this project I thought that it would be hard to do and I would know what to do it on and thought that it wouldn't benefit me but I gained things that I would have never thought I would gain from doing this project.

Last Day

Yesterday, Saturday, was my last session with my mentor. I was kind of sad knowing that it would be my last time working there. When I got there I asked my mentor what she needed help with. She told me that I could monitor the floor for a while. There were a good amount of people that came to the store that day so I helped a few more people than I did the previous sessions. Most of the questions they asked were the same questions other people had asked before so it was easy to answer. I felt good after I helped someone. Some of the people spoke Tagalog to me I had to tell them that I didn't speak Tagalog and don't really understand what they were saying. I felt bad that I had to tell them that and feel like I should know Tagalog but I don't. That might be a class I might take in college so its easier to communicate with other people and opens up a new group of people I can communicate with later on. If I do plan on making my own store it would probably be better if I did know Tagalog. I monitored the floor most of the time I was there but my mentor told me she needed help in the back every now and then. I helped my mentor carry a couple of things in back to fix and reorganize the inventory. I monitored the floor for the rest of the time I was there. Before I left I said bye to my mentor and thanked her for being my mentor. After working at a store that sells more than clothes, I feel that creating my own clothing brand and having a store to sell my merchandise is definitely one of my options now after high school.

Time logged for this session: 5 hrs

Total time logged: 25 hrs