HPU students share summer internship experiences
Jessica Brighton
Intern at Hospital For Special Surgery in the Upper East Side of NYC
Exercise Science, Class of 2017
Important advice: Once you’ve decided that physical therapy is for you and you know that you are applying for a DPT program post graduation, make sure you really use the number of observation hours that are required to find where you belong. I advise to get variability in those hours, don’t get them all from the same place, reach out to different areas, whether it be inpatient or outpatient, whether it’s with children or adults, whether it’s in a nursing home or a sports rehab center, get variability so you know where you want to go and will fit best and get the most experience.
Lessons learned: Networking is super important in the medical field. Being able to have connections throughout your own place of employment and even into others’ is so important to make the most of your job. Interpersonal skills are incredibly important, just watching the physical therapists interact with the parents of the children coming in to be treated I was able to learn so much.
Ceili Lang
Intern at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore
Theatre, Class of 2018
Internship highlights: The coolest thing about my job was getting to work with professional actors and be treated as an equal. It was really interesting to see how the rehearsal process and show differed from what we did at school. I think my favorite part was getting to interact with the audience after each show and hear how much they genuinely enjoyed the work we had done.
Lessons learned: The most important thing I have taken away from this experience is how to carry myself in a professional setting. In theatre, you need to learn when it is okay to have fun with your cast and when you need to buckle down and get to work. It was also my first time getting to work on Shakespeare, which most people know is difficult work. It was a challenge because it is so different from contemporary theatre but I gained a lot of skills in physicality and understanding the words by watching my cast and listening to my director.