‘A Successful Intern Who Provides Meaningful Contributions’

In my time working with the South Central Child Advocacy Center (SCCAC) in New Haven, I have already begun to reflect on both the soft and hard skills I’ve gained. As an intern, I am tasked daily with many responsibilities. I currently operate in a leadership role, with the responsibility of running social media pages, while also independently working on data analysis.

Both roles require a variety of hard skills. While it may not seem complex at face value, social media requires more than a thorough knowledge of Canva. Content creation is more than Photoshop and catchy captions. It requires thorough research to ensure factual integrity of each post while still appropriately serving our target demographic. Between developing a new sense of creativity and refining my research skills, it has become clear that my involvement in this role is a direct reflection and improvement of skills I have acquired in the classroom.

I’ve been able to employ principles from cognitive psychology to make design and marketing decisions. My data analysis responsibilities present an alternate application of hard skills. Most commonly, I find myself using concepts that I have learned in my statistics courses to analyze and create visuals for the data

My supervisor tasked me with creating an original, publishable report to be used both internally and externally as a template to be replicated each year. This has pushed me to use and expand upon past research and understanding that I have gained in the classroom.

Although it is easy to quantify how I have applied hard skills to my role, the soft skills I have learned in my time at the University have also made me successful in my internship. As I assume a leadership position in my internship, I rely on my previous experiences as a student leader in student government, numerous group projects, serving as a resident assistant, and more, to effectively bring together a team with varying levels of experience. I also use skills such as perseverance, time management, planning, and attention to detail.

Whether an assessment of clearly measurable skills or an evaluation of intangible skills, it is clear that this internship has enabled me to use my hard and soft skills in order to be a successful intern who provides meaningful contributions.

Isabelle Hajek ’22 is a psychology major at the University of New Haven. A member of the University’s Bergami Summer Internship Program, she is completing an internship at the South Central Child Advocacy Center (SCCAC) in conjunction with the Yale Programs for Safety, Advocacy, and Healing.