q3 q4 Reflective Journals - Katina Mo PD 6

Journal Entries Template
Date:
Timeframe:
Total hours for the day:
Aggregate: (total hours cumulative)
Here, explain with detail how you are pursuing your research investigation. To get you started,
think about:
● What activities are you completing?
● Most importantly: how do your activities relate to your research process. I want to read
about your metacognition--what challenges you face, how you overcome them, what
you’re learning, how you’ll apply that learning, etc. DO NOT simply tell me WHAT you
did; tell me what you’re learning from what you did and its impact.
● How is your thinking about your research question changing? Do you need to broaden or
narrow? Do you need to find more current sources? Do you need to reframe your
question?
● How are you finding others in the field whom you can contact?
● What new findings related to your research question have you stumbled upon?
● What search tools/engines/keywords are you using and which ones are successful?
● What sources are most relevant to your research right now and why?
Quarter 3 Reflective Journals

Date: 1/25
Timeframe: 3:00 - 4:30 pm
Total hours for the day: 1.5 hours
Aggregate: (total hours cumulative) 1.5
Today was my first official meeting with my lovely mentor, government affairs liaison Ms.
Meghan Lynch, who works for the office of county executive Calvin Ball under Howard County
government. We had a Microsoft Teams meeting this week, since we weren’t able to do an
in-person meeting until I received my official badge from the office of human resources. During
this meeting, I introduced myself to Ms. Meghan, talked about my passions and interests, and
gave a brief overview of the mentorship course and how it works. Ms. Meghan then spoke a little
bit about herself, and she explained all the details of what my internship will look like. Ms.
Meghan emphasized that the main goal of my internship is for me to be provided an opportunity
to network with others, collaborate on projects related to my research, and experience a full
working experience! Specifically, Ms. Meghan established my role as the research assistant and
fellow for the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup, a county organized workgroup
consisting of adolescents living in Howard County who are dedicated to involving young voices
in the political process through community events, outreach, and more. My work with the group
includes drafting the final proposal to be presented to the county executive, researching other
initiatives across the nation, and completing further review on the workgroup information to
familiarize myself with their initiatives. Ms. Meghan was thrilled to hear that I was also so
interested in civic engagement and government, which she studies meticulously as a part time
professor. Likewise, I am thrilled to get to work with her and contribute to the workgroup!
Date: 1/31
Total hours for the day: 2 hours
Today was my first official Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup meeting! These meetings
typically occur at least once a month, with some months having biweekly meetings to ensure
maximum communication and collaboration. At today’s meeting, Francine Trout from the Office
of Workforce Development, and Holly Hoang and Claudia Allen from the Office of Human
Rights and Equity presented to the workgroup about internship opportunities and tabling
experiences as a group. Much of the work consists of adolescents and youth, so being provided
information from other professionals within the realm of Howard County government is beyond
helpful, and also a great way to learn, which is something that I will be sure to research about
going forward. The goals of the workgroup are centered around being involved in community
organizations and events to spread awareness of the work group's initiatives, so it was wonderful
to gain insightful information on how best to approach such goals. These presentations were
great examples of a concept I am exploring in my synthesis paper, which is how
intergenerational collaboration and communicative learning from adults can help aid and
encourage youth to be involved and make their voice heard. In addition, I was officially
introduced as the research assistant and intern and met the rest of the workgroup members.
Throughout the meeting, I made sure to take extensive notes on the organization and any other
necessary info to be incorporated into my proposal drafting work later on.
Date: 2/2
Timeframe: 3:00-5:00pm
Total hours for the day: 2 hour
I conducted research on youth initiatives nationwide and read articles regarding other county and
state governments that have experimented with youth programs designed to facilitate youth
participation in government. To document this, I created a basic outline of the proposals and
initiatives into a collective document for ease of reference later on. One of these in particular was
the National Association of Counties, an organization that describes the initiatives of
governments across the nation. I learned about how the San Benito County Elections department
in California established their goal of expanding outreach beyond voting age restrictions and
fostered exposure to election vocab, procedures, and actions for youth. For example, the
department instigated a developed kids voting activity and program, to provide civic education
for all youth in the county in an understandable way. I gained an even further understanding of
how different governments have actively implemented their research into tangible products to
encourage youth participation. As I complete more research, it will all be organized into a
continuous document!
Date: 2/10
This saturday, I tabled with some fellow workgroup members at the County Executive’s Lunar
New Year Event. Tabling meant getting to network with so many other government officials and
representatives, as well as meet plenty of community members. Specifically, I got to set up a
presentation booth with information about the workgroup and work on distributing the Youth
Engagement Leadership survey for the proposal among community members. The survey was
created earlier in the workgroup’s term as a collective questionnaire for feedback on how the
county government can best implement the issues and concerns of youth in the county. The
survey had previously received very little response from youth in the county, which was a clear
obstacle impacting the process of data collection and analysis that needs to be used later on in the
report. The event was a wonderful opportunity to promote the work group’s goals and network
with others in the field, while also collecting essential data for the proposal.
Date: 2/15
Today was my first in-person work and networking experience, it was wonderful! I met Ms.
Meghan in-person for the first time, and she gave me a thorough tour of the George Howard
Building, which is where the office of executive Calvin Ball is located. Throughout the tour, I
had the opportunity to meet other fellow county executive office members, who introduced
themselves and explained their roles and positions. I was also shown to my office, which I share
with fellow intern Gabi, who works with the office of constituent services. Once I settled in, Ms.
Meghan and I communicated to gauge the next steps for the proposal and I started drafting the
final proposal and reviewing survey data. I spent the time in the office creating and formatting
the draft, and I got to use my experience with professional research writing that I have learned
from this class!
Date: 2/19
Today is president’s day, a day off from school that is perfect for conducting research for the
proposal. On this particular day, I took notes and annotated the final reports for other Howard
County workgroups that eventually became permanent county workgroups at the end of their
terms. The two workgroups that examined the most were the Asian American Pacific Islander
and La Alianza workgroup reports, of which I read thoroughly to understand how they are
formatted and displayed to best express the goals, initiatives, and accomplishments of the
workgroup. I composed all of my notes and recommendations into a collective document to be
explained at the next workgroup meeting. I learned the importance of referring to adding more
detail to background and throughout the proposal, outlining, and defining the problem first to
strengthen the overall report and accurately depict the issues that the workgroup aims to mitigate.
The importance of providing concrete statistics about youth in Howard County, or even globally
through the United Nations, National Democratic Institute, Youth Democracy Cohort as it makes
the report stronger.
Date: 2/28
This day was the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup’s February meeting. At this
meeting, I learned about data analysis foundations from Jimmy Kwak, a data analyst for the
Office of Budget. After receiving more responses to the aforementioned official YELW survey,
the next goal is to complete data analysis on the responses to be converted into viable
information to be used in the process of building the report. Jimmy provided an immense amount
of information on how to use excel, including the use of data cleaning, quick analysis, and pivot
tables. Unfortunately, the survey responses varied significantly because of the open-ended
question types, which provided a challenge for the process of analyzing the data. Luckily, Jimmy
taught the process of cleaning and sorting data, which organizes the data in an easy to read,
simpler fashion that makes analyzing data much easier. In addition, I presented my
recommendations for the proposal drafting to the entire group, including the importance of
providing more on how and why each committee of the group was formed, as well as what issues
and ideas prompted the creation of each. I emphasized how the report can either be divided by
committee or composed of synopsis of all of the recommendations the group decides on. The
recommendations will be the suggestions from the workgroup to the county executive on how
best to involve youth in the government.
Date: 3/6
Aggregate: (total hours cumulative) 19
Today I had my second in-person working experience, and I got to meet even more lovely
professionals working at the office who I didn’t get a chance to meet last time. Since there was a
development meeting event last time, many didn’t return to the office in the afternoon, so it was
wonderful to get to meet everyone in the office. I also familiarize myself with Joanna and
Lauryn, who I will be working closely with through the workgroup and in the office to build the
report. After getting to network for some time, I headed back to the main office to continue
building the base of the report that is to be added on to at the next workgroup meeting.
Specifically, I focused on fleshing out the background of the report, which composes all of the
basics of the workgroup and research in my literature review of the synthesis paper that will be
due soon. Since I am initiating the data analysis of the survey, I reviewed the previous
presentations we received to continue the process of cleaning and sorting the data to be used for
the report. Just before I left, I got to speak with Felix, the assistant chief of staff, and county
executive Calvin Ball himself!
Date: 3/21
The Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup’s March meeting was today, and we were able to
continue the process of building the report that is to be completed in May! The meeting was
mostly centered around creating a timeline for the report process and giving the committee’s
work time to discuss. I gave the group an update on how the report is going, and I delegated
chairs of the committees to establish initiative statements that will be incorporated in the report
to provide the executive with more information on how and why each committee was created. In
other words, why the subjects of health and wellness, civic engagement, and diversity are so
important to the youth of Howard County. With my time so far in this internship, I have learned
so much about how youth councils and groups like the youth engagement workgroup can have
positive impacts on the way youth approach civic and political engagement, which I will
definitely include in my research paper. I have had such a wonderful time getting settled into this
internship this quarter, and I am very excited to continue!
Quarter 4 Reflective Journals

Date: 3/28
During this week, I was able to spend a little more time in the office as it was spring break.
Today’s meeting was my first opportunity to converse with Joanna and Lauryn, the two new
advisors of the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup whom I will be working very closely
with after some slight shifts in positions within the county government. Much of today’s meeting
consisted of further planning for the workgroup, as well as discussion on the kinds of outreach
events and projects Joanna and Lauryn would like me to contribute to. Being able to voice my
perspectives and offer insight to professionals who know the ins and outs of such programs was
such a great learning experience, and it has definitely made me even more excited to work with
them. Specifically, we started with continued discussion on the report building, which was a
continuation from last week’s workgroup meeting where we created a timeline for the May draft
deadline of the report. From there, Lauryn and Joanna delegated the task of creating the
backbone of the report to me, providing me with guidance on how to structure and format the
report in a similar fashion to other county workgroup reports. With the intention of the report to
be presented to the county executive and to eventually be an established workgroup, the
cultivation of the report is essential, so I also met with members of the La Alianza Latina
Commission to ask them questions about the actual formatting of the report. Their answers were
very insightful, and I learned the kinds of information to be included in the appendices, the
synopsis, and in the general information section in order to be presented to the county executive.
In particular, every outside source, including those created or issued by the county executive, is
required to be footnoted and included in the appendices, so much of the format work will include
getting copies of the necessary documents. In addition, the general information and synopsis
sections will include lots of data and background information on youth engagement in the county
and worldwide in general, so Joanna and Lauryn have asked me to provide some of the research
from class to add into the report.
Date: 4/4
During this meeting, Joanna and Lauryn discussed my synthesis paper with me, and they
highlighted the components that they would like to see in the report. I spent most of my time in
the office today working on the report, adding in the necessary components from my paper. Since
my paper is relatively general, I also added location data from Howard County reports for more
specific evidence and background information. With the help of Joanna, much of the data came
from Howard County census and community health reports. The main goal of providing data
from my paper and other reports is to emphasize the need for youth representation and
engagement in the county, a message that is consistent throughout the report to strengthen the
recommendations suggested by the workgroup.
Date: 4/11
Today’s work was a continuation of last week’s task of incorporating data from the synthesis
paper into the report to target youth representation. After checking in with Joanna and Lauryn, I
headed straight to the office to continue writing. Today, I also had the wonderful opportunity to
meet yet another professional in the field to talk with, Paul, who is the Director of Constituent
Services and Community Partnerships with Howard County Government. It was amazing getting
to talk with Paul about his daily tasks as the director of constituent services, as he often does a lot
interacting with Howard County residents to ensure all voices are heard. In his role he assists
residents with any and all questions they have about the government.
Date: 4/18
Today, I worked remotely because both Joanna and Lauryn were out of town. During this time, I
finalized the general information section of the report, which consists of a description of the
workgroup itself, the process of the county executive’s decision to create the workgroup, and the
background on the importance of youth civic engagement in local government. Afterwards, I
started reviewing the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup Survey responses and began
breaking down the qualitative results to build general frameworks that allow the workgroups
members and advisors to visualize the perspectives of the majority of survey participants. It was
my very first time analyzing survey data of such great size, so that task proved to be a little
daunting. But with the support and notes from Joanna and Lauryn, I was able to organize the
questions into categories according to the type of response and by which committee the
responses would belong to so the framework for further survey data analysis could be created.
Date: 4/24
Today was the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup’s April meeting! At this meeting, we
started with a lot of discussion about how everyone has been, and some of our own perspectives
on initiatives or changes that we want to see implemented by the Howard County government.
For the remainder of the meeting, the focus of the workgroup was to complete each committee’s
recommendations. Each recommendation was created to fit under a specific area of interest
according to each committee, with the recommendation synopsis including the evidence
regarding the necessity and effectiveness of the recommendation, as well as support and input
from Howard County residents. To ease this process, Joanna and Lauryn provided the workgroup
with a template, which consisted of guiding questions specifically targeted towards ensuring that
the proposed recommendation is beneficial to youth in Howard County, with some of the
recommendations including expanding access to cleaner facilities and food banks and providing
more resources for mental health help. At the end of the meeting, the workgroup then drafted a
response for the conclusion of the report, as we collaborated to effectively express the
importance of the inclusion of youth voices in government while noting the achievements of the
workgroup.
Date: 4/25
Today in the office, my focus was on continuing the survey data analysis from last week to
provide a source for the committee’s to utilize for data in the recommendations of the report. On
this particular day, I worked on the demographic breakdown, which meant reviewing the
demographics of all of the more than a hundred responses with the use of Excel’s Power Query,
which was introduced to the workgroup in February by Jimmy Kwak, a data analyst for the
Office of Budget. The Power Query Editor was very beneficial in allowing me to connect to the
data from the survey as well as clean and organize the data for better access, especially since
much of the data was qualitative and largely consisted of personal responses to many of the
questions. I was able to successfully create the graphs and list all of the statistics for ease of
reference!
Date: 4/27
Timeframe: 8:00 - 11:00 am
For this work time, I focused mainly on the actual content of the survey data analysis, since the
demographic breakdown was completed on thursday. This section of the data analysis was to be
categorized into the top issues that youth feel need to be addressed and the most important issue
to improve for Howard County in general to gauge where most respondents felt the objectives of
the county need to lie. Furthermore, the survey also consisted of questions specific to each
committee that asked respondents to provide input on the degree to which they agree or disagree
with statements in connection with the proposed recommendations. For example, the student
health and wellness committee needed data on whether or not students believed that school
support for mental health and well-being is adequate enough. With the received data, many
students disagree that there is adequate support, alerting the committee and workgroup that it is
an important issue to youth in the county and the data should be used as evidence for the
recommendation synopsis.
Date: 5/2
Timeframe: 2:30 - 4:30
At today’s meeting I discussed the survey data analysis with Joanna and Lauryn, providing a
description and overview of all that the analysis encompasses. In particular, how the analysis was
separated by section in correspondence with the survey sections, with bolded statements
indicating general trends from the survey data and demographic charts from the survey for ease
of reference. There were a few changes and edits to be made that were suggested by Joanna and
Lauryn, but otherwise, the survey data analysis was complete and could be used in the report!
Date: 5/7
On this day, I met with the other three members of the Youth Engagement Leadership
Workgroup leadership team to finalize and edit the committee recommendations. We started with
editing and peer-reviewing the recommendations presented by each committee and making
changes as needed, marking specific inconsistencies that were to be discussed at the next
workgroup meeting. We also focused on altering and editing some of the formatting, making sure
to focus on the little but important details that compose a throughout report. It was wonderful to
collaborate in a smaller group with other youth just like me, as all four of us happen to be in high
school or college. I find that working with others is such a great opportunity, and we were able to
successfully finalize a full draft of the report to be presented to the workgroup itself and later
assistant chief of staff Felix Facchine, who will be proofreading it soon.
Date: 5/9
This week in the office, I started on an artifact task for the office! This specific task entailed the
review of press regarding the county executive and artifacting the information and news for
reference. On this day, I met with Lauryn, who explained the process of documenting all of the
press on the county effectively and organizing by data and topic as reference for the office of
constituent services. At the end of my time in the office for the week, I had the wonderful
opportunity to meet chief of staff Angela Cabellon and talk briefly with her about the workgroup
and its goal of involving young voices in the policy process, an objective that is shared by both
the chief of staff and the county executive.
Date: 5/24
At today’s meeting, Joanna and I spent some time discussing upcoming county events, as many
of the county’s commissions are collaborating on joining events to celebrate the stories of so
many diverse individuals across the county. In addition, this day was the day after the county
executive’s fiscal year 2025 budget was finalized, so Joanna and many of the other members of
the office of constituent services gathered to discuss the bipartisan, unanimous approval of
investments in education, healthcare, public safety, and infrastructure. From there, I met the
director of communications for the office of public information and got to read the press release
of the budget’s passing in office. I was thrilled to get such an immersive experience in learning
more about how local governments approach budgets and funding, and getting to see all of the
hard work the members of the office put into the process was amazing!
Date: 5/29
Today was the Youth Engagement Leadership Workgroup May meeting! A very special one,
since it was the penultimate group meeting, marking just a short time away from actually
presenting the accomplishments of the workgroup to county executive Calvin Ball himself. At
today’s meeting, deputy Chief of Staff Felix Facchine spoke about the recent budget
confirmation and explained how both the operating and capital budget was created, as well as the
funding for education as well. Getting to learn about how the Howard County government
allocates and works on budgeting behind the scenes was so interesting. Since the workgroup is
expected to recommend policy changes or additions that will contribute to the budget, it is
essential that we are familiar with the budgeting process. Moreover, gaining new information dn
insights from professionals like Felix is also very beneficial and expresses another example of
intergenerational collaboration that helps foster more involvement and engagement from youth,
both within and outside of the workgroup. I have had a wonderful experience working at the
internship!

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