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Ashley Barfield

Reflection Paper: Internship at the Office of Health Promotion

Ashley Barfield

Georgia College and State University

KINS 4306: Internship in Public Health

Dr. Ernie Kaninjing

April 18, 2022

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Ashley Barfield

Introduction

I am Ashley Barfield and I am completing my internship with Rachel Pope at the Georgia

College Wellness and Recreation Center for the Office of Health Promotion this semester. The

purpose of the Office of Health Promotion is to create a safe and healthy environment for

students by offering health education programs, events and activities. Up until this year, Rachel

worked at the Student Activities Center. There are 8 staff members at the wellness center and 4

interns. This new setting gives us the opportunity to reach out to other staff members at the

wellness center for help and potentially collaborate with them on programs.

Our target population are Georgia College students. This is the time of their life where

they are transitioning from childhood to adulthood. They are coming from environments where

everything about their lives was controlled and determined for them, including their health. Now,

they are off at college learning how to take care of themselves. Our mission is to give college

students the knowledge and tools that will give them the ability to have more control over their

own health. If they form healthy habits at a young age, they can take it with them throughout

their adult life.

Description of Experiences

My role as a peer health educator is to help promote healthy lifestyles to college students.

I am working another intern, Emilia Richter, and our job is to plan fun and educational events on

campus that help teach our peers about the health issues most college students are facing at this

time in their life. We organize weekly tabling events and programs that will teach the college

student about various health topics such as nutrition, fitness, mental, sexual, and other general

health topics. We also helped Rachel with some of her highway safety grant work and her

partnership with Jed Campus.

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The best part of the internship was interacting with the students. We keep track of how

many students participate in our tabling events and programs. So far, we have reached almost

1,500 students. We found a way to motivate our students to learn and hopefully improve their

health by making our programs fun and giving out free health goodies. I enjoyed making health

related buttons. Students would come back every week to get a new button and learn about a new

aspect of their health. Our Homecoming Health Bingo Night has been our most successful event

so far. Students could come play bingo, learn about their health, and enjoy the food and prizes. It

was rewarding to see over 90 students to enjoy a health bingo game on a Thursday night when

they could’ve been out partying.

The most challenging part of this internship was event planning. Nothing ever goes as

planned. There will always be obstacles that surprise me. I learned to keep constant

communication with people helping me coordinate the program. People have busy lives and

might need to be reminded of what you need from them. I also learned to always have a backup

plan if something goes wrong, or many backup plans. I reserved two spaces for my 4/20 Paint

Party event, and both of those spaces fell through. I wish I had known this before I planned all

these events, but it is helpful to know now. I wish I had done less worrying and more problem

solving. When I would plan for events and they inevitably go wrong, I wish I had spent less time

worrying about what went wrong and more time working on solutions.

Perception and Evaluation of the Internship

My expectations for this internship were to gain professional experience and make a

difference among college students. I worked in a professional environment as part of the

Wellness Center team. So far, I have reached over 1500 students in the health educational events

that I have planned. I feel like my ideas and contributions were valued and encouraged. An issue
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I did not expect was the lack of reliable members for Health Movement. Before I started this

internship, I was told that I would lead the club. When we started this semester, we had lost

many of our members because they were doing their public health internship. For the first few

weeks, it was just me and Emilia tabling on our own. It was more exhausting than I realized to sit

at a table for 3 hours every day and have enough enthusiasm to get people to participate in our

events. We eventually were able to recruit new members, but some of them were unreliable.

They would often not show up and we would have to fill in for them even if we had other tasks

we needed to be doing.

The supervision was lenient. On our first day interning, Rachel gave us an office upstairs

to do our work. She told us we could decide when we wanted to come into work, and we would

leave when we ran out of productive tasks to do. We came up with a consistent schedule to come

in at 8:45am. We checked in with her most mornings and that was when she would tell us what

needed to be done. She works out early in the morning, so she was not always at her desk when

we came in. Toward the end of the internship, she started to let us decide what needed to be

done. We had scheduled out the semester the first week of the internship and would check on

that to know what needed to be done and when. When Rachel was out of the office for a few

days, she would make a list of things for us to do. There were very few ideas of mine that Rachel

was not supportive of and she would often give me a reason why.

I would recommend this setting to future public health interns. I told Rachel the reason I

wanted to intern with her was that I could learn from her. She has experience in the program

planning field and all things college health related. I am considering a career in the health

education field. Even if I were not, I learned how to reach out to people, plan programs from

start to finish, lead a group of people, organize a schedule, and collaborate with people to get
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projects done. I would want to know more about how to apply for grants. Rachel was able to

show me the website for her Georgia Highway Safety Grant and explain some of the process of

keeping a grant.

Internship Preparedness

I felt somewhat academically prepared for this internship. Due to the diverse health courses

taught for public health majors, I had knowledge from each course. The topics we tabled on

included nutrition, sexual health, personal fitness, mental health, and general health. We do not

have a mental health course required for public health, but I did take a couple of psychology

prerequisites that were required for nursing majors. I planned many health educational programs

that my health promotion and program planning course taught me. I learned about funding,

budgeting, health literacy of certain populations and about the behavior change model. An

important lesson I learned in my Health Promotion and Program Planning class was that

planning is everything. Dr. Haynes put a quote on the board by Dave Ramsey about planning, “A

goal without a plan is just a dream”.  At the beginning of the semester, we planned out every

week for the semester. We planned all the health topics we we’re covering each week and the

events we want to do. We event worked on a tentative plan for our budget. It has really helped us

keep things organized and on track.

I learned about cultural competency in my community health course. Reaching out to

students of all different backgrounds and cultures to educate them in the best possible way that I

can is still something I am learning and will continue to learn throughout my adult career. Health

Movement was actually my site for community service hours. Working as a peer health educator

prepared me for some of the work I did as an intern for the office of health promotion. I felt most

prepared when I designed social media on Canva, since I had already designed so many
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educational Instagram posts for the club. I felt least prepared in program planning. I planned

programs working as a Community Advisor, but still felt unprepared in the depth that goes into

program planning.

One improvement the Georgia College School of Health and Human Performance can do to

better prepare public health students for future employment is require a foreign language course.

It will make students more culturally aware and hopefully prevent language from becoming a

barrier in their future career. My friend is an art major and has been required to take foreign

language courses that she may never need in her career. I believe it is necessary for public health

students to have the ability to communicate with a population different from their own. It would

allow students to better connect with different populations.

Internship Performance

I acquired communication, organization, and project management skills. For a program to

succeed, I need all three. I learned to problem solve rather than panic in a tough situation. It is

essential to keep constant communication throughout the entire project. It is important to stay

organized when it comes to staying on task and meeting deadlines. Managing a project from start

to finish is one of the toughest parts of program planning and this internship taught me to prepare

for the worst. Always come prepared with a backup plan.

I was satisfied with my performance with meeting deadlines and staying organized

throughout the semester. I would often work on tasks way in advanced because if something can

go wrong, it usually will. I tried to reserve a space over two months before our 4/20 Painting

Party and even that was not guaranteed. We had a backup space reserved as well, but that fell

through too. If I did not consistently check in with GC facilities reservations, we would not have

a space for our program.

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Of course, all work can be improved. I believe my work is great because I spend time

trying to perfect it. One skill I think I can improve on is connecting with people. Whether it is

presenting or reaching out to strangers, I struggle being able to connect effortlessly with people.

People are more inclined to learn from someone who is relatable and personable. This internship

has allowed me to practice these skills. Even in interviews, being charming seems to be essential

to getting the job. I think it is important to develop that skill for any future career I have after I

graduate.

Personal/Professional Insights/Benefits

This internship has shown me what I am looking for in a career. A professional goal I

have is to never stop learning. Each day of this internship, I learned something new and enjoyed

the variation of tasks I did. I want to walk into my job and do something different every day that

will teach me new lessons of life. This internship taught me that I am capable of working in a

professional environment. Additionally, I have learned that I can be creative. I had never thought

of myself as the creative type, but I had to be creative in finding different ways to promote health

to students. I am more confident that I can plan a program and step up to be a leader when I need

to. I learned that my skills are needed, and my insights are just as important as the person next to

me.

I learned that not everyone thinks the same. Everyone thinks different and has a different

point of view. It only becomes an issue when people refuse to learn from each other. Everyone’s

thoughts and experiences should be valued. It is important to give each individual student the

tool to take health into their own hands regardless of their background. Each person has a

different set of social determinants of health. This is why it is important to find ways to connect

with them individually. Even if it is community or public health, I have to think about the
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individual to make an impact on the larger population. These lessons will help me meet my

career and life goal of improving the lives of the people around me.