Internship
About the internship
The goal of my internship site is to understand more about the aging process and how we can better assist the elderly population. With the elderly population continuously growing, it is essential that we are able to provide the proper and necessary care required. Many people will develop a cognitive illness and wont know about it. The work we do at my internship site allows us to see earlier signs of cognitive illnesses in older individual.
Workplace
My current strengths as a team member are my ability to take initiative to complete tasks and my ability to take criticism from team members. As a professional, I have been able to grow my ability to complete tasks and get things done when they need to be done no matter how tall the task is. Another area in which I've been able to grow is my ability to work remotely, I have become comfortable and adapted to working remotely. However, I would like to continue growing in my ability to take on multiple tasks at once.This year, I've been able to grow as a somewhat independent team member who is able to be more functional in the team. I Know more and I am able to do more for the team in comparison to where I was in August. I believe my efforts were able to help the team due to how short-staffed they are. It was a situation where any hand is a helping hand. After working with a different range of individuals, something I've learned is that there is usually more than one solution to a problem and it is important to give space for those different solutions to be implemented.
Successes and Challenges
A time I was successful during my internship was when I learned how to use a software system called REDCap. This a system that is used to organize information for our study and it was complex to me at first. After a few weeks though, I was able to become familiar with the system and know how to navigate it. A challenge that I faced was learning how to talk to research participants over the phone. I had a problem with not being clear with my words or giving the correct information. I was able to address this issue by practicing and making sure I understood all aspects of the study.