Senior Projects

For my senior projects, I will be shadowing two attorneys who specialize in different areas of law. Mr. Miller focuses on corporate law, assisting businesses, providing counsel on financial matters, and overseeing marketing deals. I’ll be shadowing him in his office, gaining insights into his daily tasks and operations in his department. For the last four weeks, I’ll be working with Mrs. Kirk who specializes in juvenile law, advocating for children in troubled environments or involved in legal issues. She collaborates with social workers to assess the safety of juveniles’ homes and devise strategies for them. My role will involve observing her advocacy efforts and courtroom preparation techniques.

During my senior project, I am going to experience different industries that I am interested in like real estate, business ownership, architecture, and air traffic control. I wanted to gain exposure to as many different industries as possible in the time that I have. Weeks 1/2 involve exploring Spain’s culture and architecture, including visits to Granada and Toledo. Weeks 3, 4, 5, and 6 I will be doing real estate analysis and business mentorship with professionals like Mr. Moscicke, Mr. Weintz, and Mr./Mrs. Salem-pon. In Week 7, I will have the unique opportunity to learn about air traffic control, with a backup plan involving property management with Mrs. Larson. Week 8 I will be doing business mentorship with Mr. Weintz again.

I will be working in real estate with US Properties. While they can give me work for eight weeks this time is flexible, so if either of the two organizations that have not yet responded have openings I may be able to work there too towards the end. The two organizations I am waiting to hear back from are the Missouri Historical Society (specifically the soldier’s memorial branch) and the APA, which is an animal shelter. I hope to gain experience in a work environment. While I do not plan to go into real estate as a career, I feel that the experience that this opportunity will provide will extend beyond the scope of real estate. The historical society would give me valuable experience working in an environment similar to a museum. I plan to work at the Chicago art museum during my freshman year of college. With the APA, I hope to give back to my community in a meaningful way. The end of my schedule is pretty flexible, as US Properties is able to give me work, but is also keeping things open in case anything else comes up. I will create a slide show detailing my experience. This slide show will include pictures from my time working with US Properties and summaries of what I did week to week. I will also give advice for anyone interested in working in a similar environment and more general advice on what to do and what not to do when working on a senior project.

You probably think that I am really productive and organized since I am posting this on Thursday night, when it’s due Monday, and while I wish this was the case, it is unfortunately not. I am posting this tonight because if I don’t I may forget it on my MASSIVE to-do list. I am very excited for my senior project and excited to not be spending eight hours a day at school for the first time in seventeen years!

Anyways, I plan to shadow and volunteer with several companies that include: The Missouri Historical Society and History Museum, The St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM), Shakespeare St. Louis, May’s Place Vintage, Agape Help House in Pacific, Refresh Resale, and Larry Hughes Basketball Academy (LHBA). At the Missouri History Museum I will primarily be working with kids, touring school groups, interacting with guests in the exhibits, checking people in, and greeting. If I get to work at the Historical Society, I will also help guests do archival and research work, which the nerd in me (What, Ella no way your such a popular jock type!) is incredibly excited about! SLAM is tentative since they haven’t followed up to my follow up email, but if it does workout I will be greeting people and giving tours. There is also a possibility that I will get to work with Dr. Maggie Crossland, who has curated her own exhibit on global art at SLAM, but she is also teaching classes at WashU so this may not pan out. I will be spending two weeks with Shakespeare St. Louis working with Hannah who helped our middle school produce their version of Macbeth. I am super excited for this one because I will be getting to work with a school group and give them feedback on their production and I am great at being a harsh critic (just kidding, I will be constructive not mean). I got all three of these contacts from Mrs. Bryan and they are really great because they are areas I may want to pursue after college (if Hollywood doesn’t work out). The thrift stores and vintage store will have me help them organize clothes, greet customers, ring customers up, and answer phones. There is also a possibility that I will get to go with Katie May, owner of May’s Place, on one of her vintage sourcing trips, which I am really stoked about! I have gone to Agape since I was a little kid and my whole family personally know all the ladies who work there. I found out about May’s Place from Instagram and thought they sounded super cool. And we have volunteered in the past at Refresh and had really good experiences. Finally, at LHBA I will be working with kids and teams, helping with drills, training sessions, and practices, set up and clean up, answering phones, and greeting customers. I got this contact from former employee and former assistant basketball coach at TFS Chelsea Freymuth, she worked there for years and absolutely loved it and I have also attended training sessions and camps there and had a blast.

My goals for the project are to learn about professional and academic areas that I may pursue after college like history, art history, english, political science, theater and film studies. I am really passionate about these areas and also want to show people how fun these academic subjects can be. I chose the thrift stores and vintage stores because I love thrifting, vintage, and fashion. I also think it would be cool to own my own vintage store, sell vintage, or make style bundles for people as a side hustle or a full time career, but it definitely takes a lot more work than people think and I am excited to see the behind the scenes aspects of it. Finally, at LHBA I want to learn about not only the dynamic and physical side of coaching and training, but also the business side of it. I also just think it sounds really fun to possibly have a career where you are basically payed to play and teach basketball to kids all day. I am super excited about my project and think it will be an overall MOST EXCELLENT and a totally NON BOGUS experience!

I accidentaly made this one way too small. oops! This is where the external conflict starts to show.

This week in Kansas City, I am shadowing CSI partner and location manager, Phil Potter and General Manager, Josh Bennett. They are both really cool guys that have been fun to hang out with. With Phil, I have watched as he delegates work throughout the different departments as well as oversees the operations throughout the company. I have also been able to travel to different job sites and observed a site survey for an upcoming installation. The Kansas City location for CSI is run a bit differently from the other branches and has the freedom to experiment and try different methods to solving the same problems.

With Josh, I have watched his daily tasks and searched for parts around the warehouse to send to the manufacturer under warranty. Below are a few pictures I took from the job sites.

Last time I made a post, I was just about to go into my first day at the salon. So far, there hasn’t been a whole lot for me to do throughout the day. Legally, I’m not allowed to do anything related to the client, so I can’t mix color or touch the client at all. I’ve chatted a bit with the clients when the conversation between Mandy and them got interesting. I’m shadowing Mandy, and she’s a very laid back and genuine person. She has all sorts of stuff to talk about. I’ve done a lot of people watching, and learning how to be bored. For the first few hours of each day, I’ve ended up just sitting and watching stuff happen in the salon. It’s sort of boring, but sometimes it’s interesting to listen in on other people’s conversations. Mandy knows all of her clients super well and so they have a lot to talk about. Usually it’s interesting listening to their discussions, but I’ve had a lot of down time. I ended up spending a lot of time each day on my phone, at least in the morning, just because there’s nothing else for me to do. On Wednesday and Thursday, Mandy had time in between clients, so she asked me if there was anything I was interested in learning about. On Wednesday, Mandy got out a mannequin head and taught me how to curl hair with a three barrel curling iron. Thursday, I learned how to curl hair with a flat iron. On those days, I didn’t have anything to do in the afternoon either. On Friday, I learned how to fishtail braid, and I spent some time practicing braiding on the mannequin head (her name is Helen). Then, I switched from fishtail braiding to french braiding. I had no experience with french braids or fishtail braids, but I knew the basic principles, so I sort of taught myself how to french braid. I spent three and a half hours on Friday just doing tight little french braids down the mannequin’s hair. I almost got finished with a full head of braids, but I had a few left to do. On Saturday, about an hour into the day, I got out the mannequin and finished braiding. Then I went back and redid a few of the first braids I did just to clean them up. I’ve gotten a lot better at french braiding, but it’s still super hard to do on anyone who doesn’t have stick-straight hair. I ended up taking out the braids later in the day, and I straightened Helen’s hair. Something that I’ve noticed is that each day is pretty different from the next. Mandy knows all of her clients really well, so it’s a lot more fun to do work since you get to chat the whole time. Hairstyling is hard on your body though. Apparently almost every hairstylist has to have carpal tunnel surgery at some point, or even several times throughout their career. The pay for hairstyling is very reliant on how popular of a stylist you are. Mandy has a waitlist, so shes pretty popular. Some days, she will have only two or three clients who are doing lots of color work on their hair, but other days, like Friday, she will have five or six clients, most of which were just simple haircuts. Mandy also has full control over her schedule. She works wednesday through saturday, seven hours a day, but she handles all of her appointments and scheduling separately from the salon. I’m fairly sure that the salon gets a cut of what she makes, but for the most part, it seems like mandy works for herself. She does have two other jobs though, so I don’t think hairstyling is enough of a career to support a family and pets and whatnot. I’m super interested in the chemistry of hair dying, but thats not something Mandy can really teach me about because we don’t have enough time, plus, we cant dye any of the mannequins because they try to reuse them as many times as possible. Overall, it’s been going well. My next and final day of my project will be Wednesday, and then it’s time to present!

My schedule was basically the same for the second part of the week. I would be with Mrs. Camp in the mornings helping with whatever she needed for Social Studies. Ever Friday Mrs. Camp has a couple of the kids give presentations on their favorite celebrities. She will video their presentations and show them to the other classes on Monday. This week I learned more about Shawn Mendes! In the afternoons I either help Mrs. Camp or Mrs. Fuller with the kids in work experience. The kids either do work experience at Straubs or the school. I have really been enjoying my time with the kids and teachers!

Thursday was my last day at The Sheldon. There wasn’t a concert that day it was actually an award ceremony for a bunch of non-profit companies in the STL area. There was a networking event before the awards were given out. I helped make sure the networking event was going smoothly and all the staff had what they needed. At the end of the night I said goodbye to everyone I worked with. It was sad to leave but I am happy I got this experience.

My dad and I went on a sales drive. It was long and we drove around a lot. We had a few businesses on our checklist to just walk in and introduce ourselves. Other businesses we just saw and walked in. With things like a sales drive you have to be prepared for no. If someone thinks you’re trying to sell them something they’ll be on guard and almost won’t want to listen to you because they think that you’re a waste of their time and energy. Usually, if you just ask to talk to someone they will let you talk to someone. My dad and I probably knocked on the doors of 10 different businesses. We didn’t get a single definitive yes. We give every business our business card and will check up on them every once in a while. If the business has IT trouble later, then they might remember who we are and give us a call, which is the main idea behind the sales drive.