Over this past winter and spring breaks, 86 Haverford students participated in the Extern Program. This program allows students to job shadow alumni or Friends of the College for a few days. Students observed the work, talked with their sponsor, interacted with colleagues, attend meetings, and got a glimpse into a career field of interest. The externs job shadowed physicians, lawyers, educators, policy makers, business people, museum administrators, film makers, writers, editors, librarians,environmentalists, entrepreneurs and not-for-profit executives.
Externs in Action!
What externs had to say about their experience:
“It was truly an unparalleled experience. I was so glad that I got to speak with so many different professionals and learn about their job. The people I worked directly under were extremely approachable and went out of their way to show me their work and help me understand the life cycle of a project. Overall extremely great experience.”
“Over the course of one week I not only worked on small projects but also spoke to people from different departments to get a sense of the full functioning of the organization.”
“I had an awesome experience. The work is very project based. Thanks to my sponsor, I hardly ever sit in my office during my externship week. I spent most of my week attending meetings, talking with other civic leaders, and visiting high schools and state capitol.”
“I helped my sponsor doing a very exciting research project around urban agriculture, mainly aquaponics.”
“I shadowed [my sponsor] during her usual work shift from about 8am to 7:30pm in the pediatric ward; this involved sitting in on morning round briefings with the residents (and medical student), as well as visiting different patients and observing how the doctor or residents examined them. She gave lectures to her residents on different topics (ex. Infant rashes), so I got to learn from those too. I also followed individual residents when they were working with patients, so I got to ask them questions about the process and their recent experiences with medical school.”
