At Mastery Charter school all 10th graders have to complete a 16-week internship. Our internship coordinator set up three interviews for us to go on and Drexel was one of them. The interview went well for both of us and Drexel became our top placement choice.  In February we were told that we were placed at Drexel University College of Medicine for our internship site for the rest of the school year.

The time gap between the interview and being notified of our placement was very long and we forgot what our goal was. When we came to Drexel the first day of the internship we didn’t know what to expect. But when we arrived we were told that we would be working in the archives department and would soon be interviewing medical students as well as faculty members during the course of this internship.

As the weeks progressed we focused on our main project, which was to create a Google map of all the community service sites from 1996-2002. Through this project we learned new computer skills. (See the project map below.)

Despite all of our computer work we began to branch out of the office and start our interviews. We interviewed Mary Ellen Bradley and Dr. Zarro first; the objective of these interviews was to learn about the history of community service at Drexel University College of Medicine. From these interviews we learned that community service wasn’t always a part of the curriculum.  We also received insight on the first community service projects that we set up. Weeks later we interviewed two medical students, Blake Bowden and Lola Adekunle, who are currently enrolled at Drexel University College of Medicine. The students gave us advice about our future careers as doctors by telling us the college courses they were required to take. 

Listen to a clip of the interview with Lola Adekunle.

Overall, this internship was a learning experience. We came into this not knowing what to expect but now we are leaving with new skills that we have acquired over these past week that can be applied later in life. For instance, we learned new computer skills, and added to our communication skills all because of this internship. We also found out information involving college that will be applied later in life. Before this experience we viewed an internship as something that had little to no meaning, but all of the things that we are leaving with proves that it actually has some significance.