My campus employment supervisor is September Johnson, who oversees my work as a Peer Health Advocate for WesWell. This is what we discussed:
- What are you hoping to learn from this experience?
Through my experience in this course, I am really hoping to come into my role as a PHA more. I hope that this course will help me develop the skills necessary to have the confidence to start projects with WesWell to engage the rest of the Wesleyan community with health education, and most importantly to carry them out effectively and efficiently. I find that I am best motivated to do work when it is tied to my success as a student, so perhaps this course will help me get some more concrete projects off the ground.
- How do you see this work as complementing your academic, extracurricular, or career interests?
As I mentioned, I see this work as working in conjunction with my work as a Peer Health Advocate. I think if this course is able to facilitate my work better as a PHA, then that will also have positive impacts on my future career plans. Specifically, I think this course will help me build a portfolio of work with WesWell that I can then talk about in my med school applications, making me a more competitive applicant. Additionally, since there is focus in this course on some of the competencies that are important to the AAMC, developing those competencies will certainly help my applications.
- What is the best way to give you feedback and support you to ensure your success in this role?
The best way to support me in this role would definitely be to check in on a regular basis. Otherwise, with the stress of the semester, projects may get pushed to the back burner, as they have in previous semesters.
- Of the six Ideals into Practice competencies, which do you feel play to your strengths or past experiences, and which do you feel need more development?
I think I have pretty good communication and collaboration skills based on my past experiences, and especially as someone who has grown up in an age where technology is so utilized in every aspect of life, I have great digital literacy. However, I think my inquiry and analysis skills could always be developed a bit more–which I think comes naturally with the work a student does over the course of a semester in their classes.
