My Internship Experience at Slippery Rock University with Alyssa

The following is an computer-generated summary of the video transcript.

So what a lot of you guys might know by now is that I am an exercise science major pre physical therapy here at slippery Rock University. So this video is just going to be me kind of explaining a little bit about my experience so far doing an internship and what that looks like and why I did that here at slippery rock for the program that I'm in. So what's really special about slippery rock is that they offer a accelerated option for physical therapy. A lot of other pre professional attracts like occupational therapy, physician assistant athletic training programs like that. So for that accelerated program for physical therapy like me, it's three plus three. So in that sense that first year of grad school kind of double dips is your fourth year of undergrad and you would therefore for the exercise science major be exempt from doing an internship. In my particular case, I really wanted to enter grad school, my first year PT school as an official graduate students. So that being said, I did have to finish all of my undergraduate requirements in the exercise science department, done my three years of undergrad during my summer internship. So that way I can be totally graduated by the time I start physical therapy school in the fall when it comes to completing your internship, you really have so many options and opportunities so you could have gone to a strength and conditioning place cardiac rehab, really do so many options being a wellness coaching, maybe like a Y M. C. A. Or something. The route I went as I actually stayed here on campus at slippery rock University and I have become an exercise science research lab intern. Um I did a lot of the heavy lifting in the beginning when it comes to more So the literature review drafting an introduction and methods section for hopefully what will become a published research paper. I'm right now spending time actually doing data collection for my study and also assisting with data collection for another study we have going on in our lab right now. So our exercise science department loves doing student faculty research. I've been involved in that for a couple of years during my undergrad time and I actually was able to make an internship out of it over the summer. So this is where I am in the lab right now. I kind of just want to show you my set up for my internship in my research. So right here is where my participants will sit for what we call our cold pressure test. Then this machine over here is where we have everything that we would set up for the 12 lead EKG E bilateral blood pressure cuffs and just using that computer to see the heart patterns and um things like that. To me, there's lots of benefits to completing an internship prior to starting graduate school, even if you're going through the accelerated track like me. So for my reasons, I wanted to be a graduate assistant. So in order to do that for the two years that you're eligible, um you have to come into grad school as an official graduate student. So if you're going through the accelerated program and you are having that first year of grad school, also count as your fourth year of undergrad, you therefore would not be able to be a graduate assistant that first year of PT school because you're not an official graduate student, you're still technically finishing your undergrad. So that's one of the reasons why I decided to do my internship is, so I could enter grad school as an official graduate student and that opens up the opportunity for me to be a graduate assistant. I will actually be a graduate assistant in the fall for the undergraduate admissions department, so I'm really excited about that other benefits of doing your internship is really just the experience. So I've been able to learn a lot through my internship of doing research. I was able to, during my undergrad do a little bit of the more background stuff, help with data collection, but now I'm really getting to work like hands on with participants running data collection, running the studies um and that's a really big responsibility. It's also given me the opportunity to communicate my studies to the participants in answering their questions. So it's really been a great experience for me um to kind of put my knowledge of the exercise science department, what I've learned in the program to practical use, Lastly, the other thing that's really good about these internships is that it does affect the financial situation for graduate school. So if you are accelerated again in that first year of PT school is also counting as your fourth year of undergrad, you're still technically an undergrad students, so you're, although you're paying the tuition for grad classes, you're still technically for financial aid purposes and under grad student for your financial aid eligibility. So being a an official graduate student, which again is why I'm doing my internship in the first place to be a grad student come in the fall, um that does change your financial aid situation in the amount of money that you're eligible for. So for all of those things together, that's why I decided to do my internship over the summer. So that way I can start pt school as a grad student, do my G A position as well. One thing that I'll note about these internships too is that you do have a lot of guidance from the exercise science faculty members, they'll help you kind of figure out where you want to go, what you want to do, how you contact those sites and kind of create an internship out of it for me in the exercise science department and doing research, it was something that I was interested in that I've been involved in before, so I felt comfortable enough to kind of approach my professor and just say, hey, I'm interested in doing this. I would love to kind of be on campus and in the lab over the summer. You do have guidance as far as finding internships and going out there and fulfilling the requirements for your internship. That's why I just wanted to reiterate that do not doing it alone. Thank you all for listening to my video on how I got my internship and what my internship is and how it really is preparing me for my path ahead of me, a physical therapy school.