I am currently a Level IV Co-op Health Sciences student studying my undergraduate degree at a Canadian university. Within the early months of 2020, amid the world going into lockdown and restrictions being placed around work and travel, student-internships became one of the very many initial positions to be discarded. As such, my experience trying to obtain an internship for this time was incredibly difficult and trying. I had applied to hundreds of positions, interviewed for a few, and then — luckily, managed to receive an exciting science-research based-position for a company founded in Waterloo, Ontario. I’ll be expanding on my experience within this post and covering details regarding my role, the pivot I had to make from the world of lab/bench work, what I learned, what I got out of my experience, and also general tips I would suggest to students just beginning to obtain internship-experiences or are new grads. I’m hoping that this post helps out other students after undergoing the difficult-enough process of acquiring an internship experience amidst the worldwide pandemic to make the best out of your positions!
My Internship Role
For my internship position, I was recruited to work for a Waterloo-based healthcare company as a Research Analyst. As soon as I heard about this organization, I was excited to be potentially working for them because I found it fascinating that they help to provide support and services in various domains of public health. The organization helps to provide numerous R & D services to research novel therapeutics, operate and run a rehab clinic to help provide its patients with treatment, deliver healthcare management support, and more! So heading into this internship experience, I knew that I was fortunate to be doing work that could have incredible value and need. Excitingly, I learned that I would be working within a team to advance research efforts within the field of Alzheimer’s Disease. I had previously studied and learned about this disease and had even previously participated in a school-research project focused on developing a novel therapy regarding this disease, so I was thrilled that I was getting an incredible opportunity to work more within this area, apply and build upon my previous learnings and insights to contribute more towards advancing this area of study.
My Role Duties
My primary and major responsibility within my internship was to participate in a massive systematic literature review focused on exploring the safety and effectiveness of various therapeutic interventions for Alzheimer’s disease. My efforts would be of value for many different reasons: they would help to determine the gaps in the current state of research, whether researchers should conduct larger-scale studies (i.e. meta-analyses) concerning these specific interventions and gaps, whether future studies could explore these possible research inquiries as future research questions within the laboratory or clinic, and more. I learned an incredible amount about the comprehensive systematic literature review process, ranging from gaining an improved understanding of the necessity of stringent and rigorous selection criteria, an understanding of scientific-study specific databases, the importance of locating specific and precise search terms, search strategies, screening processes, and the importance of documentation at the various stages of the systematic literature search. The team I participated in explored Melatonin Supplementation therapy and Vitamin & Carotenoid Supplementation therapy as possible interventions for alleviating Alzheimer’s disease symptoms and reducing disease progression.
WFH in Science Research
As my internship began during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and I was provided with the privilege to work remotely, I found that I had many unique experiences that I obtained that I was able to contrast with my previous on-site work experiences. These were experiences where my physical presence within the workspace was deemed unquestionably necessary while working within a laboratory to investigate and solve research-questions. I was surprised to acknowledge that I was shockingly able to be more productive through working at home than I had thought I could be (based on online school experiences). I enjoyed being able to tune into group sessions and contribute within group-meetings with other teammates regularly and take that time to discuss difficult problems or brainstorm about novel insights for tackling specific problems. On the flip side, I enjoyed then having the opportunity to revert into my little work-bubble and focus and concentrate on completing the rest of my tasks. Since I found that remote work does not offer the opportunity to present many social interactions, it can be challenging to create connections and network with others. Within the physical workspace, these opportunities are plentiful and arise spontaneously in an impromptu fashion, which means you don’t need to exert any major effort to chase them. For this reason, I found it extremely helpful to ask for the opportunity to have regular chats/meet-ups with my supervisor and allocate that time towards discussing the projects, asking questions, discussing career trajectory, etc. These sessions can also be extremely valuable because if your supervisors possess an understanding of the areas that you would like to grow within and learn more about, they can then offer you such opportunities when they come up.
Setting Goals
One of the most valuable exercises that you can do before embarking on a new experience (i.e. starting a new academic year, new job, etc.) is to set ambitious, growth-oriented goals. It’s valuable to take the time to reflect and create learning objectives, career goals, and then also discuss these with your supervisors so that you can grow in areas that are important and valuable for you. Personally, for me, I had job-specific and personal-growth specific goals that I wanted to advance within. Firstly, I was keen to learn as much as I could about the process of conducting a systematic literature review and ways that software/programs could help to expedite these reviews. I also wanted to learn as much as I could about this process to use these skills for my academic coursework (i.e. thesis) or future careers. I achieved these objectives by working diligently and collaboratively to compile two systematic-literature reviews for the Melatonin and Vitamin & Carotenoid supplementation therapies. I also helped uncover a web-based systematic-literature review program that I then brought up with my supervisor. This program could help expedite and accelerate the systematic-literature review process and facilitate improved collaboration and improve efficiency and quality of the review. After raising these beneficial advantages, my supervisor agreed to support its implementation — and it’s still being used within the organization today after my internship ending! My personal growth goals also included endeavouring to take more initiative and become more proactive in my role duties. By the sheer act of trying to emulate traits, I was fortunate enough to be presented with an opportunity to transition into the role of a Team Leader for a portion of my internship. It was quite exciting and a little intimidating, as I had never entirely viewed myself as a leader before. I found it a profoundly extraordinary experience to take on this level of responsibility to support my team and carry out our projects to the full potential.
Final Thoughts
All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed growing through my internship experience and had a phenomenal sense of final satisfaction after completing our systematic literature reviews for Melatonin and Vitamin & Carotenoid Supplementation therapies (I will be expanding on these reviews in a later post!) I learned a fair bit about the overall systematic literature review process, developed a new-found sense of appreciation for the scientific field of study and also developed some considerable professional growth and built up my collaboration and team-working skills, which I am confident I’ll be applying to a variety of future academic and professional working spaces.