Internship
I worked at the California State San Marcos Sports Medicine Room under Mike Curran and Michelle Hamilton for 5 months. This internship was beneficial to my learning and helped to justify my decision to pursue athletic training as a future career. I worked in a team that included many other interns of varying abilities, some of them new to the internship as I was, as well as a few others who had been in the internship for a longer period of time. This internship was a learning experience for me because I had never had any previous experience in the athletic training setting. I was really nervous and somewhat scared my first week there because there was no training for this internship, we were just thrown into the training room, and I didn't know what to expect, it was a learn as you go type of job. Fortunately, this internship because of the "learn as you go" nature and the constant fast paced speed we had, allowed me to develop certain aspects of myself. Being thrown into this environment allowed me to become very independent, I became better at asking questions, and most importantly asking for help. I had to become my own kick-starter in this internship, no one was going to be there to tell me what to do or what had to be done, I had to handle this on my own. Which was a different experience for me, but a good one for me because it gave me a little look into what will happen when I get a job in the future. I held many responsibilities inside the Sports Medicine Room which included setting up waters and ice for practice, perform tape jobs and wrap jobs on athletes, perform ultra sound or set up stimulation for athletes, injury evaluation, monitoring rehabilitation programs, documenting injuries, re-stocking supplies inside the sports medicine room, monitor men's basketball off-site practice, and I worked at home game's specifically for men and women's soccer as well as men's basketball. My internship also hosted an "Open House" for any family or friends of the Sports Medicine Intern team to come and see what we have learned and where we intern. By doing so we had to do presentations on a certain aspect of athletic training. This was a test of our knowledge so far as well as allowed me to work on my public speaking skills and to be able to inform others on a subject that may seem complex to a crowd that did not know the subject of athletic training.This internship allowed me to utilize my abilities that I have learned through softball, my previous work experience, and the things that I had learned and allowed me to apply them to help the athletes. I thoroughly enjoyed working at my internship and made it a point to be inside the Sports Medicine room as often as I possibly could, I knew that the more experience I had with the athletes, the better my experience would be and the more that I would learn. I also had great mentors, Mike and Michelle were great and taught me many things that I never expected to learn while at my internship. Working with the athletes and with the California State University San Marcos Sports Medicine team was a great experience and we became a close-knit family, I would not change any part of my experience with the athletic training team, it will be something I will never forget for the rest of my life.