Isaac B., LOOP NOLA’s 2020 Outdoor Ambassador
Even though 2020 has thrown everything upside down, we were still able to hire one LOOP NOLA Outdoor Ambassador this year. Our Outdoor Ambassador program is a teen internship program for local high school students. The interns gain valuable professional experience while participating in fun, outdoor activities.
We typically try to hire a few teen interns to work with us over summer break, but it just didn’t work out that way this year. Summer was still a little too shaky with the pandemic, so we held off until the fall semester to look for this year’s Outdoor Ambassador.
That decision worked out so well! Issac was a fabulous addition to the LOOP NOLA staff. We felt especially honored to have him work with us for his first job ever! Obviously, we like to think that no future jobs will live up to this one. However, we’re confident that Isaac will do well wherever he lands, and they’ll be lucky to have him.
Since Isaac just wrapped up 2020 with us, we wanted to take this week’s blog to highlight his thoughts and learnings from his internship.
Q&A with Isaac B., 2020 LOOP NOLA Outdoor Ambassador
Q: Going into this internship, what did you hope to get out of it?
A: I came to LOOP as a student in the past, and I really liked it. During this internship, I wanted to learn more outdoor skills -- like survival skills and being able to take care of myself if I needed to. I’ve done a little outdoor stuff before, but not very much. I was hoping to learn more outdoor skills.
Q: Now that you’ve finished your internship, what do you think is your biggest takeaway?
A: I did gain a lot of outdoor survival skills. But I also learned a lot of other skills that I can take with me to future jobs. I think the biggest thing I learned was customer service skills. When I first started, I was a little nervous to talk to customers when they’d ask me things. I would try to be polite, but I didn’t know what to say or how to talk to them. But once I saw how calm y’all (the LOOP staff) were and how you just welcomed everyone, I got a lot more confident and a lot less nervous.
Q: Do you have any new favorite things to do outside?
A: My new favorite thing..… I think my new favorite thing that I did outside with LOOP was just meeting new people. Before this internship, I mainly just hung out with my friends or people I already knew. This was the first time I’ve had to meet so many new people and talk to them. It was really cool to meet new people every weekend and get to see so many different personalities.
Q: If you could go on any outdoor adventure in the future, what would it be?
A: I’d like to go hiking, like on a mountain. It would be really cool to be up on a mountain and get to overlook a city down below.
Q: Do you have any final thoughts or feelings about your Outdoor Ambassador experience?
A: It was a great experience, honestly. The next intern is going to have so much fun! Hopefully, when I get older, I can come back and work here.
To find out more about LOOP NOLA’s Outdoor Ambassador program or to learn about our outdoor adventures for teens, contact us today.
