Kari Brown

Reflection Paper

Dr. Lidstone

4/21/19

Reflection Paper

My name is Kari Brown and I am almost done with my internship at Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention center (CDC) in Atlanta, GA. CDC has two campuses, one being the

Emory campus and the other is the Chamblee campus. I have been interning at the Chamblee

campus this semester which is located off Buford highway. This organization was founded in

1946 and was known as the Communicable Disease Center and their mission was only to

prevent Malaria from spreading across the nation. Since then they have come so far and are

now one of the major operating components of the Department of Health and Human

Services and is recognized as the nation’s premiere health promotion, prevention, and

preparedness agency. The target population includes people and communities from all

over the world and the general public.

As for me, I have interned in the division of Violence and Prevention, with the

Injury Center, with the Violence Against Children (VACS) branch. I intern under Health

Behavioral scientists, Epidemiologist, Psychologist, and Health Education Specialist. Our

target clients are children aged from 12-24 in Countries all over the world, but mainly

South America, Africa, and Europe. The VACS team’s mission is to collect data in order to

educate the general public on sexual, emotional, and physical violence against children,
in hopes that the country will implement programs to aid in stopping violence. They

would do this by preparing a data collection team to go out in the community and ask

parents if they could survey their children. There are many steps that had to be taken in

order to accomplish this goal, such as community entries, response plans, interviews,

mapping and listing, and much more.

My role as an intern was to assist one of the health behavior scientists with

Mozambique, Lesotho, Namibia, and the Ivory Coast. I would help with the surveys,

question by question review, and training slides for each country. While I was assisting

with that, I was also in charge of making trainings for VACS trainers that were over HIV

testing, Interviewing tips and techniques, Community Entrance, and Response Plan. My

favorite part was creating the trainings and being able to be a part of the data to action

plan. I enjoyed the trainings, because it gave me the chance to show what I have

learned from GCSU. I was able to create a training that communicated with the

population correctly, created innovative activities, and brought in new content for the

team to see. It was so encouraging to get positive feedback back from the team and

actually use my knowledge from college. I also enjoyed the data to action plans. These

were used when the data was finally collected and analyzed. During this part we were

able to come up with ways to help stop whatever trend was show in the data. This also

was the opportunity for CDC to create partnerships with agencies and organizations in

each country. For example, in Zimbabwe it was shown that girls were getting raped
when they were out alone doing their chores. We partnered with Together for Girls and

came up with programs to implement in order to stop this, such as, after school

programs. The most challenging part for me was getting the tablets ready for each

country. It is not that it was hard, but it was so tedious. Also going from Apple to

Android is also really hard (1st world problems). In all seriousness though, getting tablets

ready included lots of beta testing, analyzing, and programming. This helped me realize I

am not a data person whatsoever. I am more of an implementation team member,

working directly with people type of person.

If I could have picked something to have done more of, it would have been to

present my trainings in the field in one of our countries. My supervisor presented me

with the option of traveling to Mozambique to present my trainings. However, it was

later found out that everything had to be said in Portuguese. We then discussed that it

would not be beneficial for me to go, since I could not understand the language, nor did

I want to go through the process of asking GCSU. However, I was so encouraged they

actually wanted me to do that! I think being able to see the end result of my project

would have been amazing to see. With that said, the first two weeks of my internship

were the only times I was doing “grunt” work, but after I had access to my CDC

computer and email, I was doing bigger projects.

I don’t think my internship could have gone better. It exceeded my expectations and

opened so many doors for me. The staff was extremely positive and open to my ideas or

suggestions and always encouraged me to participate in weekly meetings. I remember being

really scared to talk in meetings, but because they were so encouraging and welcoming, I

believe I really blossomed throughout my internship. I think the supervision was the right

amount, because he wasn’t over my shoulder, but would check in with me once a week. There

were also two other people I would report to and they checked in with me weekly as well. I

would recommend this site for future students. CDC is the prime example for what public

health truly does. I have learned so much in a short amount of time and I would love for other

students to have the same experience as I have. I don’t have many suggestions of things that

could have gone better. Honestly, there were no problems on my end or with the CDC.

However, my supervisor did mention that working with the internship coordinator was difficult.

I definitely am trying to get a job with CDC. They pay extremely well and the benefits are

great! As I have mentioned before in my journals, I have applied to the PHAP and am getting my

masters in order to pursue a career at the CDC. I do not think I would like to work at a desk job

at CDC, but I would love to do what VACS does. VACS travels to a different country for a few

weeks then comes back to the states for another few weeks and it is the perfect balance of

traveling and being home. In the future I would love to have a family, but I would still love to

travel with my job, especially oversees. In my life time, I would love to experience as many

different cultures and communities as I can.

I believe I was well prepared for my internship. GCSU’s program prepared me so well! I

felt most confident in creating trainings and activities as well as being able to communicate to a

certain audience and changing my language to fit that community’s level. I think I was least

prepared and confident in the data work, which is understandable since we only had one class

that focused on data. The courses I found most helpful were methods of kinesiology, health
promotion program planning, research methods, and women’s health. These classes prepared

me so much for my internship and I felt I was able to be heavily involved in my work because of

them. All of the classes I listed were relevant to my internship placement and I was able to use

what I learned in them. I honestly felt extremely prepared at my internship, but I also learned a

lot too. There was rarely anything I did not feel good about. I think GCSU has done a great job

with preparing us for real jobs in the public health field. I do think it should be encouraged

more to get out into the Milledgeville community though. I think that is also why I felt so

confident in my internship. Milledgeville is the perfect community for future public health

students to get involved with and learn so much from.

New skills I learned were how to network and communicate with people outside my

branch. I had so many projects that required me to set up meetings with people I didn’t know. I

had to really get out of my comfort zone and set up one on one meetings. I also learned how to

make better presentations and only keep the important parts in the presentation. This also led

to me becoming a better presenter and public speaker, which I something I have always

struggled with. I am great with one on ones, but group speaking is very challenging for me. I

think my projects were good quality and I think I was good at meeting my deadlines. In the

beginning, I do think my time management could have been better. I found myself rushing to

do things last minute, because I didn’t think they would take as long as they did. I also struggled

with over committing at the beginning as well. I was overcommitting and underperforming, and

I had to re-evaluate the way I was doing things. I kept saying yes to things when I shouldn’t. I

still struggle with it, but I am getting better. I just hate disappointing people and I have always

been that way. Thankfully, my supervisor was able to have a talk with me about it and it was
probably the best thing to happen to me at my internship. She was so encouraging about it and

made me feel okay with saying no.

Before going into this internship, I kept telling myself and others that I didn’t want to get

my masters and now I realize that I can’t work at CDC without it. I also used to say I want to

only work in the field and never in a cubicle. That has changed too. Not the cubicle part, but I

now see I can make a huge impact event when I am not directly working with the target

population every day. This internship gave me confidence that public health is what I need to

be doing, especially this topic area. Preventing violence is always something I have been

passionate about my whole life, so to have the opportunity to work at an internship that

focuses solely on that has been amazing to be a part of in VACS. This internship has allowed me

to love people where they’re at and to help prevent something that is so underrated in the

public health field. I have also realized I would love to become a Health Educator Specialist. I

have loved being able to teach in my internship and bring it to the level people are on. My

internship has proved there is a huge education gap in sexual education in our society and I

want to close this gap. Working with VACS has given me the confidence to be bold in what I

believe and that anything is possible. I have been empowered and inspired by this team and I

am so very sad it is coming to an end. However, I know I will be back working with CDC and I

look forward to the adventure that is to come in my public health career. I am ready to change

the world.