Health Science Internship Reflective Paper
It is through reflecting on concepts, actions and concrete experiences that you will recognize that an experience has forged a new way of thinking, encouraged mastery of new skills, and/or facilitated personal and professional growth in accountability, integrity and character. Therefore, a reflective essay will serve as the final assignment for your internship. In this essay you will compare your own perceptions, knowledge, skills and abilities previous to completing your internship with your current perceptions, knowledge, skills and abilities. Thus, the purpose of this assignment is for you to analyze what you have learned as a result of completing your internship and identify components of your program of study that are integrated in your internship experience. Think about how your experiences have influenced your personal, academic and professional growth. Discuss and share your thoughts about these experiences and what they signify for you.
Use the following outline when writing your essay. Each section contains a set of questions and considerations to help guide you through your personal reflection and composition. The length of the paper will vary. However, it should be comprehensive in nature and present a smooth, flowing narrative in anecdotal and autobiographical form of your experience. Use words / phrases in bold as the subheadings for your paper (IVII).
Subheadings are required. Please see the grading rubric following the outline.
I. Overview: A synthesizing paper should be turned in at the completion of the internship. It should begin with a general overview of the internship setting and major objectives of the agency. Identify the objectives of your internship and summarize the strategies to achieve those objectives.
II. Projects / Functions: Describe your primary job function and / or specific projects that you worked on during your internship. If you worked on more than one project or in more than one role, title each activity separately and clearly spell out the who, what, how, and why of it. For each project or work activity, reflect on what you gained from the experience.
III. Products: Did you create any tangible products as part of your internship experience (i.e. needs assessment questionnaire, marketing materials, evaluation instruments, intervention plan and instructional media, manual, etc.)? If so, describe and include in appendix if possible. If creating products was not a function of your internship, what types of tools, instruments, computer programs, educational materials, etc. did you use in your internship? Describe your experience using these tools/products.
IV. Successes and strengths: What were your successes? Reflect on your skills in the work place and determine your strengths and how this lead to success. Have you noticed that some parts of your job come more easily to you than others? What have you discovered about yourself and your skill set? Do you like public speaking? Working behind the scenes? Working with people? Researching? Writing? How have your skills prepared you for this role? What skills do you still have to develop to be more effective in in the work force?
V. Challenges: What were some of your challenges? If there were problems, how did you correct them? What kind of strategy did you develop? What were your failures? What did you learn from these? Did you seen some challenges your supervisor has dealt with during the internship? How were those addressed?
VI. Coursework and Field Work: What have you learned in your coursework at UofM that helped prepare you for your internship experience? Were any courses more helpful than others in preparing you for your specific experience? Have you seen links between lessons in the classroom and tasks in the field? Likewise, what new knowledge or skills have you learned “on the job” that were not part of your coursework or classroom experience at UofM? How will you use this new knowledge or skill set going forward?
VII. Site Reflection: What do you see as advantages and/or disadvantages of doing an internship in this particular setting? What did you learn about yourself? What effect, if any, did the internship experience have on your career plans and goals? Do you recommend your internship site to future interns? What advice would you have for a health sciences student that is about to begin their internship experience. This advice can be specific to your selected internship site, or more broad and include your advice on selecting a meaningful site.
