LINK Internship - Medval
Today was the last day of my Internship and it was a truly life changing experience. I had an amazing time with MedVal and all of their people were very helpful. I wish I would have stayed longer, as I was only there for about 10 days. The days in the city were amazing and I had so much fun walking and exploring the concrete around me. The lights from the city at night were beautiful as they always captured my attention.
Overall the time with MedVal was very productive and it would have been better for me to be with them for longer, that way they could help me through the process a little more, but I am managing the best I can and well from what I can tell. I am proud of myself for being put in a strange environment with people I am not comfortable with, as I flourished and it improved my social and work skills. The project definitely helped me talk and get to know some of the people from around the office. I am so happy and excited that I will have this experience under my belt for the rest of my life. I worked hard to go to New York and work on my writing skills with professionals. It turned out to be one of the most beneficial things that I have experienced. From here I need to complete my project and finish out the LINK time that I am given strong. I think that this experience gave me some skills that I can use when writing either for college or a career path. The insight that I was given about my writing and the things that I was taught about language was very beneficial to my academic and intellectual integrity. I am proud to say that I have excelled and I hope to use the things that my peers at MedVal shared and talked with me about. This week I spent some time out of the office. I went into the city on Tuesday because it was my birthday and got to see some amazing places in the city. I love the tall buildings and everything that the concrete jungle captures and represents to me. I walked around and saw some amazing art pieces. I went to a coffee shop and worked on my pamphlet about AIDS among Teens. I spent time gathering research the week before, but was not yet ready to start the project.
I had an amazing time in the city and I learned a lot about the subway system, the streets, and address design, I hope to spend more time there before my internship period is over. I will never forget this experience, it has served me well, and now it is time to kick the learning and work side of the internship into full throttle for the next week. My last day here will be Sunday and it seems like the time has flown by. I spent a lot of time in the office this week, and even stayed a night in a hotel in Jersey. The commute from Michaels house is so long that we just decided that it would be cool to stay in a hotel for a night. The days were longer, but it gave me more time to make headway even when I was not used to the long days and the night away. It was a god experience and it benefited my knowledge and production. Week one was a success and I had an amazing time on my first day. For the first part of this week, I researched and worked on my manuscript from Durango. Halfway through the week I traveled to New York. I spent all day Thursday traveling. Friday I spent my first day in the office as I researched for the report, meeting people, and going over certain things with the team.
I had an enjoyable yet busy introductory week. I have yet to make any terrible mistakes. As a writer, I make mistakes, that is what created refinement and revisory stages of writing, therefore, if I make a mistake there is a whole stage to my job, devoted to fixing mistakes. Most of the week I worked with Rozena Varghese, PharmD. She works as the Scientific Manager/Medical Writer at MedVal. She is smart, efficient, and always prepared for a task placed in front of her. She is the kind of worker that most people aspire to be and am proud to say that I am working with her. I gained way on my project this week because that is the only thing I am working on during this internship. My manuscript for MedVal is also my project for LINK. It shows everything that I have learned as well as real world application. For the next week, I hope to focus on my research as well as completing a survey created in order to gain understanding what my peers have been taught about HIV and AIDS in their young age. It is evidence that can go towards my end goal of providing information for teens on the illnesses. Over this past week I gained the skill of learning how to research using alternative search engines. This means to use an engine besides google or bing to find information. I used a database consisting of comprised medical studies and information pieces. They are more reliable resources than anything I could have found using google because they are fact checked and have been looked over to be approved to present. I did find that using this tool can be tough, but as long as I persevere through the moments when it is tough to find resources, it most likely will be very beneficial to me. I am proud of myself for picking up this tool, for I can use it in my everyday school research. There are many other search engines besides google, and many of the are perhaps more reliable. It was tough to get to New York for an Internship but I did it, and it will be amazing. I am so excited for this opportunity; to learn from a group of highly educated people in the writing field. Writing will be the subject in which I pursue in my near future, so getting some experience with individuals that use it in everyday life can teach me a ton about the craft. I will focus mostly on informative and professional writing. For this reason, I am excited to return to Steve Smith's class and show everyone all that I will learn from this experience.
I will be creating a manuscript regarding what teens need to know about HIV and AIDS. The company I am working with will assist me in this, for this is what they specialize in. MedVal is the name of the company that is assisting me in this process. My mentor will be my uncle, Michael Platt. Michael handles the business side of the company, meeting with clients and discussing the reports that are being worked on and provided. I hope with his help and the whole team at MedVal, I can create a project I am proud of and can place on my College resume. Once this is presented to the world, I hope that it will present information to youth all over the country and even the world as AIDS and HIV is a growing problem that needs to be addressed and attempted to be prevented. Before my internship I will begin to refine my research skills. I want to be prepared to research and write. I believe that the research I conduct will begin to improve my professional writing skills as my finding will mostly consist of medical journals and writing a lot like what I am aspiring to create. Finding dates to come to New York and stay for an extended period of time was trouble but my mentor and I got through it by being flexible and perseverant. Through those things, I learned that problem solving will be a bigger part of my future and work life than I thought. I am excited to travel to New York for this internship mostly because I love the location and I will not be alone as I will be spending my time working and living with family. I will get to visit perhaps my favorite place in the world as I explore options for the future. I am a bit nervous in result of the idea of traveling so far whilst be alone, but I am sure the butterflies will go away once I arrive on site. -Max |
Max B. MartinezAnimas High School |