Summary Paper 1

An Internship in Union Operations

at the University of Utah

Cory L. Headley

University of Utah

ELP 6711: Higher Education Internship

Fall 2009
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Overview of Internship

My internship was in the A. Ray Olpin University Union where I worked in union operations.

The main reason that I chose to do my internship here was because of my interest in working in

the college union. The college union has played an important role to me throughout my college

career. My relationship with the college union began during my undergraduate career where I

was a heavily involved student. My involvement was responsible for choosing a career path, and

bringing me where I am today. My professional experience within the student union thus far has

been working in student activities. My internship has allowed me to learn more about the

operations side of the house. My career goal is to remain working in the union, and to eventually

become a union director.

Concepts and Ideas Related to ELP Master’s Program

There were two ELP courses that I relied on during my internship experience. The first was

our Student Development Theory course. We learned a lot about a variety of development

theories, and I was able to use a lot of those theories since a lot of the employees in our union are

students. I think it was helpful to understand the different stages that students go though because

I think that a lot of these stages will continue to happen throughout their lives. I really thought

about this idea when I was working with some of our custodial staff. I could see that each of

them is in a different development stage.

The second course that was useful to my internship experience was our program development

course. My main project for my internship was to create an inventory of everything in the union.

I began this project by deciding how I was going to inventory the union. I decided against

purchasing an inventory program, and relied on an excel spreadsheet. This project became
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bigger than I could have expected, and I truly think that I was better able to handle because of the

program development steps that I learned in class.

Class Correlation

One of the most interesting things that I have gained from our internship seminar was about

the different stages that I would be going through during this process. I really didn’t think that I

would be going through stages during my internship experience. As I reflect on my internship

experience, and look through my journal entries I realized that I moved through the different

stages that we discussed in class. I think the text, articles, and discussion that we have in the

seminar are helpful to dealing with many of the situations that we face during the internship.

Theory to Practice

The main theory that I used during my internship was Sanford’s Challenge and Support

theory. The role of being an intern can provide to be rather challenging as it places you in an

environment where you really don’t know what your role is. The support factor becomes really

important for the intern. As I look back on my internship experience I know that our class

discussions, my professor, and my internship supervisor provided me with the support that I

needed to be successful.

Recommendations

Internships should be considered for anyone who wants more experience in an area that

interests them. The knowledge that I personally gained from my internship has been very

valuable, and I will be able to use the experiences that I had throughout my career and life. I

really appreciated that I was given the autonomy to be creative, and to make decisions. My

internship supervisor provided me with this autonomy. The one thing that anyone can do before

they go into their internship is to go into the experience with an open mind, and be willing to
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have new experiences. Working in student affairs is really about thinking outside of the box, and

being willing to try something different. My last recommendation for anyone doing in an

internship is to make sure that you put in as much as you can into the internship. The more you

put in the more you will get out of the experience.

Reflections

The most important part of the internship experience in the reflection. As I look back over

the seventy-five hours I can see that I really grew as a professional. I wanted to share some

passages from my journal entries as I reflect on this experience. In my first journal entry it

states, “Even though I have had over a year experience working in the University of Utah Union,

I still have a significant amount of anticipation for my internship experience” (Headley, 2009). I

think this is an important passage to share because we can be in a position for nine years, and

still feel a great amount of anticipation when we are faced with something we haven’t done

before. My internship experience provided me the opportunity to work with staff in the union

that I didn’t work as closely with when I was doing activities. These staff members are the

custodial staff of our facility. The opportunity to work more closely with these amazing

individuals really helped me realize the importance of relationships no matter what level the

employee is at. Finally, there was a passage in my journal talking about the competency stage of

the internship. It states, “am I better prepared to become a Union Director” (Headley, 2009)?

The answer to this question is a resounding yes. One of the most important parts of the

internship is to leave the experience feeling more competent in what we are doing. I truly

believe my internship was successful in creating that competence.

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Conclusion

I have really enjoyed my internship experience. The goals that I set for this experience, I was

able to reach. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I gained personally from this experience. I

had a great site supervisor that made my internship experience better than I could have imagined.

Since completing my hours I now feel confident in my abilities to work in the college union no

matter what area that I end up in.

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References

Headley, C. (2009). My journal. Internship Journal. Retrieved November 16, 2009 from

http://sites.google.com/site/coryheadley/internship.