Thank you letter

I need to thank my supervisor, Mr Greene. Thank him give me a such a good opportunity in the Treasurer's Office.  He really taught me a lot useful knowledge and also afford so much help during my whole internship.

And then, thank you amazing Brooke Wheeler. Without you, I cannot image how this internship will be. You are such a beautiful girl and always be ready to help me. Even I will not be in this office any more, it doesn't mean the end of our friendship! I will try my best to find a job here!

I am so glad ASU and Maricopa County have this great program and thank you all whoever involved in this program.

Important things from this internship

Where were the most important things you learned from this internship? Look back to your first blog. Did you meet your initial goals? Why or why not?

Learn stewardship from this internship:

1. Integrity: need accurate number and careful with calculation.
2. Produce: need to read 400 Arizona Revised Statues to find out which will impact the activities of office.
3. Accountability: need to be accountable to understand the detail of every activity.

I think I already meet the initial goal and really satisfied with the internship experience.

Interesting APP

I just found this interesting app called doll. This app can create your own 3D model according to your picture. And also you can make your 3D doll singing and dancing. So much fun!

Here is my own 3D doll!  LOL!

What are the strengths of your organization

What are the strengths of your organization? If you were in charge of a similar organization, are there any thing you would do differently?

The strengths of my organization:

1.      There are six divisions of the office and the responsibility of each division is very clear.

2.      The SharePoint created by the IT division make the work much more efficient and easy for every managers to track their work process.

3.      Since one of my organization’s main tasks is collect property tax in the county, thus the quality of customer service is so important for the office. They have a detailed service manual to direct the cashiers how to offer a good service for the public.

If I was in charge of a similar organization, I don’t think I will do something differently. Since this is a government office, it is not easy to change the way they do or how they operate. But if that is possible, I may want to change the decoration of the office. I may let the office have more colors and make the office looks full of vitality if I have the budget…

Career Service

 

On May 25^th, I attended the career conference hold by ASU in downtown phoenix.

The first thing I want to say is that I am so glad they had a photography service there and finally I got an professional photo for my LinkedIn, although I am not pretty in that photo.

There were almost 50 organizations in that conference and most of them were government and nonprofit organizations.  Since my major is public administration, it was really a good conference for me to have a talk with the recruiter of those organizations. But as an international student, I was a little disappointed because most of the organizations only open to U.S citizens.  

Anyway, this career service afforded me a lot of career information and I think I will definitely go again.

Cooking

Do I love cook? Yes!
Do I love wash dishes? No!
That's why I always struggling whether I should cook or not!

Today, I just want something spicy to eat. So I made the spicy pot and I should say it was so delicious !
I may open a restaurant！

Jiuzhaigou Valley

Last summer, I went back to China and had a really good trip with my parents! There is a very famous valley, called Juizhagou Valley. The river and water can be six to seven colors.

This place actually full of the Tibetan nationality and I really like their own costumes!

St Patrick's Day

There was a new activity in our office! St Patrick's Day! Everyone in the office brought some "green" food and had a nice party!

That's my first time to celebrate the St Patrick;s day and I thought is was fun and interesting! Because in China, green hat means infidelity. So if you heard some Chinese said somebody has a green hat, that always means his or her parter is cheating. Aha, different culture!

DO NOT tell my boyfriend that I wear a green hat!

How does your organization demonstrate public service and urban governance

Since I am the intern in Treasurer' Office, the main job for this office is property tax collection and some investment , fund transaction for the the county. So the public service for this office is obviously try to provide the residents convenient accessibility to pay their fair share of taxes using online technology to access real-time information and make payments.

People used to receive paper form and tax bill. They fill the bill and then send back to Treasurer's Office. But right now, for the public's convenience, the office tried to encourage people use the on-line system to make the payment. This method actually can be timesaving and also easy for the public to review their payments.

Back to art again!

Haven't draw for a while!

I need to practice my graphic skill and at least not forget how to draw a picture!

Thus, I drew a traditional Chinese painting this afternoon. I always addict to the ancient culture of China and I hope one day I can use time machine to go back.....hah!

happy spring break

The Renaissance Festival during Spring Break! The knight in the photo called MAX won the game and I was on his team!

 

Turkey Leg there was delicious! But too big for me..... 

 

Look at these two kids, they were like in the French film called "Love me if you dare". Soooooo cute!

Interview of my supervisior

The supervisor I interviewed is the deputy treasurer of my office, Mr Greene.

1. What is your main job responsibility?

    The first one should be the budgeting. And he also responsible for some special projects, monitor legislation, manage IT service and technical service divisions.
    He also needs to develop programs and update policy and procedures for the office.
    He will do the high level report annually.

2. What type of education or training is needed for your position?
    
   Financial and economic background, CPA/MBA , knowing how to quire data.

3. How did you chose the career?

   At first, he wanted go to medical school, but financial job can help him to support himself early. 
   Then he found the thing he really good at, may not the one he wants to do. However, if he can find a job with more autonomy,  he will enjoy the job.

4. What advice would you give to someone interested in this field?

   Look for a more marketable degree.

   See what kind of job you really want to do

   Be creative

   Do not limit yourself on a traditional view.

5. Do you notice any trend in you field?

    

   More professional degree needed

   High technical skills 

Leadership

Since I am just an intern in the office, there are not too much opportunities for me to show my leadership skills.

Fortunately,  the trainer divided all interns of MCLEAPS program into two groups to work on group projects. And she also asked us to select a leader to track the project and report to her once a week.

For a group work, leadership is important and also difficult. Since we are all full-time interns in different departments and working at different buildings, even cities, it is not easy to get together to discuss the project. The group chat and google doc became the best way for us to exchange ideas. Thus, it is really hard for the leader to track everyone’s work progress.

I am the person who care the progress so badly. If someone do not complete his/her portion on time, I will be very frustrated. According to some books, they divided leadership styles into several categories, such as bureaucratic leadership, charismatic leadership, servant leadership and transactional leadership. Each one has their own characteristics.  Thus, I think I might be the bureaucratic leader and always want to everyone follow the procedures. Once I was a leader in a group, I tried my best to set several procedures for them and track the process frequently. The result, as you can see, it was not good. The group members felt I was so annoying.  

So I believe every leadership style should not be isolated and should be combined according to your and your group member’s need.

I am hungry now and need fried chicken right now. I may continue this topic someday…..hah!

Travel Plans

Since I will graduate this May, my parents will come to visit me! So excited! And the most fun part is that I can start to make travel plans for them.

I love make travel plans. I can start to look at every famous cities of U.S and decide which of them are more attractive to my parents. I am planning we can starts from San Francisco and pass through Los Angeles, and down to Las Vegas. Then we still have time to go to the east of U.S and to see how beautiful Washington DC is and also New York city!  But who knows, plans can change very quick.

Chocolate fondue in office!

We had chocolate fondue in the office this week and it was awesome! This is my first time to try a fondue like this. Everyone in the office brought one bag of chocolate and we melt them in the pot. When you eat strawberries or bananas with the melt chocolate, I should say it taste so good. But after this, I need do more workout that night because of the calorie！

Career fair in Tempe

Two weeks ago, there was a career fair in Tempe campus and I asked my supervisor to give me half day off that I can go to this career fair.

I thought this career fair may afford me some opportunities to find a job after I graduated. But turned out the companies and organizations in this career fair were more focused on the undergraduates and the STEMs. So I even did not have chance to send my resume out.

But I still waiting for the career fair on March in Downtown campus. There may be some organizations related to my major.

Chinese New Year's Eve!

This year is the Chinese year of ship (or goat, ram). In Chinese tradition, if this is your year, you gonna have the most lucky year ever! And my amazing Brook already prove that.

Actually the new year's eve could be a little difficult for me because I cannot join my family  to celebrate it. I haven't seen my family for almost two years and I really miss them!

But thanks for the "chief", one of my friend, I had a very good eve this year! She cooked all the delicious meals and made me wanna cry.
And the most excited thing is that I got 44 red envelopes! So lucky!

Wanna go back to Renaissance !

It is the first time to know that we have the Renaissance Festival in Arizona! Thank to amazing Brook told me about this festival.

I am so excited and can't wait for joining this festival. The dress from that period attract me a lot and I aways dreamed one day I can dress like that.

But for some personal reason, I can't go there until March. So sad. But I will definitely rent a costume like this and have a fan in hand. It will be so interesting.

Amazing Brook!

When I got the internship and told there is another intern who also from MPA, I was so curious about who she is. Finally, in the first day of our internship orientation, I met this girl and she was busy texting with her cellphone. I even had no chance to say hello.

However, after we started the internship, It is so lucky to have Brook with me in the Office. At first, she may seems a little serious, but when we begin to talk, she is funny and can always come up with some interesting ideas!

She likes draw some interesting stuff on anything just on hand, like the notebook, the Starbucks coffee cup, half slice of paper and so on. She loves Hello Kitty and cute animals. She would really cry if you tell her a sad story.

Brook just got her dreaming car and she was so excited about this! Unfortunately , I haven't have chance to carpool with her new car! Still waiting.

This little milk box was from Brook and sitting on my office desk, I like the smile of this cute box! Make me happy everyday!

One day of my internship

One day in the Office

Started the morning with my new coffee maker! 

I had two meetings this morning. One was about the policy and procedure and another one is the seal of the Treasurer’s Office.

Policy and procedure meeting was really impressed me. This was the first time I met all the managers in my office, the Treasurer, deputy treasurers and the managers from other five departments.  They talked about the activities of the office and tried to update the policies relating to those activities. 

The second meeting was interesting and I had fun with it. The office tried to design a new seal which can represent the Treasurer’s Office and also can be easy understand by the public. The seal designed separately by other intern, Brook, the girl full of creative and fun ideas and I has been both picked to combine together! Yeah!

And this day was also a pink day!  All my stuff around me were pink, even the highlight of the documents! I love it!

Introduction of my office

Since I already worked for almost a month, it is time to talk about the place I am working.

Firstly, background of the office. Maricopa County Treasurer’s Office was established in 1891 and has been the ex-officio tax collector and the treasurer of all school and special districts with Maricopa County. According to the statute, the County Treasurer is charged to collect, invest and disburse taxpayer funds. So the mission of the office is to provide receipt and safekeeping of all taxes collected upon real and personal property of the county, all public monies arising from any source to accruing under the provisions of the law to the county and so on. The office try to provide the residents convenient accessibility to pay their fair share of taxes using online technology to access real-time information and make payments.

And my mainly duties are:

·         Create and update policies to address ambiguity, improve efficiency, or fix business processes.

·         Serve as a gatekeeper for access, update with deliverables as needed, and create task lists to track project statutes.

·         Identify funding sources and possible uses of dollars, research fees and create an inventory explained in statute, conduct annual forecasting.

·         Track legislation affecting the Treasurer’s Office, analysis possible impacts, coordinate with Government Relations Office to advance office initiatives.

It is a really good and interesting place to learn how the office operate and gain more experience of doing budget and analyzing policies. People in the Office are very nice and friendly and I really enjoy working here.

 

 

MCLEAPS internship

My name is Weirong Chen and this is my last semester in master of Public Administration.

This semester I got an internship in Maricopa County Treasurer's Office and will end in May.  So excited to have this great opportunity!

The first goal of this internship is that I can learn how the Treasurer's Office operating.

The second one is that finding a way that I can apply the theory I learned into the real work.

The third one is that I can complete all the works  gave to me during intern time.