Career Development

Journaling is an exceptional way to note one's progress through an educational experience. To facilitate and record this reflection process we require students participating in the Field Experience Internship Program to submit weekly reflections via email in the form of journal entries.

Your journal entries provides a means to reflect on your internship experiences and should be a compilation of your observation, reflections, and discoveries about your internship experience and the field to which you are gaining exposure. You are encouraged to journal as often and for as long as you like.

Weekly Reflection Requirements

All submitted journal entries must meet the following requirements:

1. Journal entries must be typed. However, photo journals, audio journals, and other creative journals may accompany your written reflections.
   
2. Each weekly submission is due by Monday, 8:00 a.m. EST following every week of your internship via email to career@kzoo.edu.
   
3. While journals will contain personal reflections and commentary, each entry should make reference to observations or experiences at your internship.
   
4. Subject Line of each email entry should read FE Journal Entry, Week___, [your name].
   
5. Each entry should include your name and the topic to which you will be responding.
   
6. Weekly journal entries should respond to one or more of the suggested topics below or should respond to a topic of your choosing that is similar in scope to the suggested topics.

A member of the Center for Career Development staff will review all journal entries. Yet, if at any time you have an issue that you wish to discuss with a Center staff member, please contact us immediately by phone or email.

Weekly Reflection Topics

To provide you a "jumping off" point with reflections about your internship experience, the following topics revolve around issues we have seen college interns grapple with across multiple industries. As you may want to revisit some of these topics later in your experience, you may also choose to address the same topic more than once for your weekly reflections.

Suggested Topics for the Beginning Stages of Your Internship

• What reactions do you have to meeting new people, orientation/training, and the general work environment?
  
• Describe your level of confidence in the prospects for contributing to the work of this organization. Your level of interest in it?
• Does your role look more like it's going to be "just a job" or an opportunity? Explain.
• Tell a story about a week, day, or moment when you felt great about your work. How about when you felt bad about it?
• Tell a story about a week, day, or moment when you felt great about a colleague's work? One where you felt bad about it?
• How does your organization contribute to the community? How do they characterize their responsibility to be a "community citizen?"
• How "globally aware" would you say your organization is?

Suggested Topics for the Middle Stages of Your Internship

• Think about your expectations for the internship (whether regarding the tasks you would be doing, the organization itself, or even about the profession/industry). Remark on one of these expectations, indicating how this belief has been confirmed or dispelled.
• During the week, ask various professionals in your workplace to name one thing they wish they had realized about the profession when they were your age. What did you learn and what are your reactions?
• How is the educational background and/or training of the professionals in your environment similar or different from your own? What do you see is the value of your Kalamazoo College experience in preparation for this field?
• Before beginning your internship, how did you envision that "things got done" at the organization? What predictions have been on the mark and which have been off base?
• Interns are often criticized for needing "too much guidance" and intern supervisors are often accused of "not making enough time" for interns. What is your response to this viewpoint?
• In some industries, profit mainly drives decisions. What are the primary decision motivators in your organization?

Suggested Topics for the Final Stages of Your Internship

• Complete this sentence, "If I could change anything about the way things work at my internship organization, it would be....," as well as "If there was something that I could be sure never changed, it would be...."
• How are issues of diversity addressed at your organization?
• Draw a picture for us of what the organizational chart is like at your internship organization. If it was up to you to redesign this structure, how would it look different?
• What stereotypes have you heard about this field, or professionals within the industry? Why might the general populace make these assumptions? And what, if any, flaws do you see in these perceptions?
• What particular contributions do you see interns making to this organization? How would you describe your own contributions? Are there particular resources in place that hinder or facilitate your contributions?
• What would you state is the "higher purpose" for professionals in this field? How much do you see this vision playing into the day-to-day tasks of the professionals in your organization?
• What character traits/abilities are rewarded in your organization? Would you say these are universal traits/skills rewarded within the profession overall, or are these valued traits more a reflection of how your organization is managed?
• What sacrifices may need to be made to be successful in this field?
• What did you learn about work? About workers? About office politics? About yourself?
• What advice would you give to younger students looking to explore the career field in which you've interned?

Tools For Framing Your Journal Entries

Observing

• If you see something interesting, curious, amusing, or thought-provoking try to capture it in your reflection. Observation entries may help you gain insights into your internship responsibilities.
  
• Set yourself an observation task. For example, observe the people who sit near you.
  
• Ask yourself "What do your observations say about the work environment and work culture?"

Questioning

• Use your journal to formulate and record questions that are important to you.

Speculating

• Think on paper about the meaning of images, facts, readings, encounters, patterns you observe, conversations you take part in, and the direct experiences you have.
• Ask yourself "What if?" and "Why?"

Self-Awareness

• Think about who you are and what you stand for, in relation to the work culture of which you are going to be a part.
  
• Ask yourself the following questions:
  • How do you resemble co-workers? And how do you differ?
    
  • How do you react to uncomfortable situations?
    
  • How do you learn in the workplace?
    
  • What values are most important to you? What values are changing for you?
    
  • Where do you stand on ethical or cultural issues?
    
  • Who influences you? Or whom do you influence?

Digression

• Let your writing lead your thinking. Allow yourself to drift off the subject of your entry and often you will discover the ideas that interest you most.
  

Synthesis

• The journal provides a space for you to make connections. Put together ideas from different sources. Find relationships between ideas, experiences and cultural events. Link your learning in college to your decisions in your personal or professional life.

"Tools for Framing Your Journal Entries" adapted with permission; Dr. Ruth Overman Fischer, George Mason Univ.