Virtual Internships Abroad Overcoming

Centre de Santé Mers Elkhir - Temara, Morocco

With Penn’s preprofessional culture manifesting itself in pamphlets at job fairs, students in suits and ties marching down Locust, LinkedIn notifications, and daily conversations with peers, I often felt that I was the only one who didn’t have a direct plan for after college. My recently declared neuroscience major infers a STEM track, while my creative writing minor and high school journalism background encourages a life full of transnational travel and documenting people’s stories. My contrasting interests suffocated me, and as a pre-med student with next to no concrete experience in health, I felt like a fraud. I asked myself, were my “passions” really passions? Or was I pursuing a career in health because it was the reliable option? Ten years down the line, will I have regretted the career I’ve worked my whole life for? Acceptance into the VIA program became my lifeline. As an intern for the Moroccan municipal hospital, Centre de Santé Mers Elkhir, my responsibilities are diverse, from creating databases for documenting patient symptoms to creating chart analyses. The diversity of my tasks offers me many opportunities to investigate my love for health and drive toward people hands-on and in unfamiliar spaces. Before the internship, the extent of my knowledge of the health industry had been restricted to an American perspective and online research. I hope to complete the VIA program with a newfound confidence in my decisions to pursue a job, postgraduate education, independent research, etc., both in America and abroad, without the lingering fear that my heart is not truly aligned with the objectives of the health field.

In addition to facilitating the exploration of different career paths, one of the main factors that pulled me into the VIA program was the ability to engage in international discourse from the comfort of my home in El Paso, TX. I took advantage of the ability to dictate my own work schedule to fit my summer needs. In addition to the internship, I also work with the Netter Center to virtually facilitate the 6-week summer Career Exposure Program, so flexibility is a feature I value as an intern. My head supervisor has thus far been more than accommodating of my schedule and interests, and our weekly check-ins ensure a space of open dialogue, integrated knowledge, and trust. Since I plan on studying abroad during my undergraduate career, these meetings strengthen the interpersonal skills necessary for living in a place with novel customs and norms.