My own evaluation about my internship

It's been a few days since I've had the time to truly think about the experiences I've had in India so far, particularly at my internship. This semester, I'm doing an internship at St. Catherine's Home, which is an orphanage for girls. It's about an hour away from where I'm staying so during the commute to and from the orphanage, I'm able to think about all that's happened so far. And now, I'm finally able to write it all down on paper.....so bear with me and this long post :)

Every day when I walk into my internship, St. Catherine’s orphanage, I can’t help myself to think like a social worker and to ask questions about the orphanage. I thought that it would be great to work in an orphanage and see the adoption process first hand. But since there are no adults around or a supervisor around, being able to ask these questions proves difficult. It’s so frustrating not being able to ask questions about the adoption process. Here I am at an orphanage where children are being adopted left and right, yet I have not even been able to meet with the social worker there or see the process first hand. I realize some of it may have to do with confidentiality, but I should at least be able to hear about what the adoption process is. I have so many questions that I would love to ask some of the children that have already been adopted, that are waiting to be adopted and that will never be adopted. After living with all your friends for a few years, how do you feel being pulled from that environment and into a new one? What is it like not having mothers and fathers to come home to? How is it living with girls who are just like you? Do you find it easier to make friends at the orphanage because of this? I’m finding that I will have to do my own research about adoption, because these questions will never get answered.

When I went to my internship on Monday, I was faced with the same challenge as in the other days: find other ways to communicate with the girls, rather than verbal, and to help them improve on their English. As the days go on, I’m still faced with that same challenge and every time I’m faced with it, I learn something new. There wasn’t anything special about the day, but I find that just by observing them and see how they interact with each other, it can help me to interact with them as well.

Some days I feel like I’m not learning anything new because the education part of being a social worker isn’t being fulfilled, aka not learning about the adoption process and more about the agency itself. And other days, I feel like I’m learning so much and am constantly improving on my skills as a social worker. Even though I still don’t feel like I’m doing all that I would like to do in my internship, I am learning valuable skills that could help me when communicating with anyone. Every day that I think about my internship, I keep coming back to the same thought. When you’re not able to do what you would like or how you would like to do it, you’re faced with having to come up with a different alternative for how to do what you would like to do. Making this skill better will help me with any situation that I am faced with.

As someone who wants to have a career in the field of higher education and student affairs, I find this internship being a wonderful resource and experience for me. In order to do my job well in the field, I will always have to have a second plan for how I would like to accomplish my goal. My internship at the orphanage is teaching me that in life, I will not always be able to do Plan A. If I’m planning a dorm event, I might not realize until later down the line that the night I want to have my event is when there’s a big hockey game that everyone’s going to. The field of student affairs constantly will have curve balls thrown at me, where I will have to be able to think on my toes and come up with other alternative ways to come up with a solution. Having this internship experience has helped me to further develop those skills and give me more experiences so that I will become a better professional in the higher education and student affairs field.

At first I wondered how an internship at an orphanage in India help me to get into grad school and to have a career in student affairs. But since starting the internship, I’ve found that there are constantly life lessons that I am learning and skills that I’m improving on that will definitely be able to help me later down in the line.