1 Reflecting on the course
You’ll start this week with an activity that encourages you to look back over the course and reflect on what you’ve learned each week.
Activity 1 Pulling it all together
Review your notes and responses to each activity of the course, then summarise your key learning points in the boxes below.
The easiest way to review your notes is to download your answers as a PDF via the ‘Download your answers for the documents on this course’ link on the left-hand side of the page. You should open this link in a new tab or window by holding down Ctrl (or Cmd on a Mac) when you click on the link.
These notes don’t need to be too detailed – thinking in bullet points or using a mind map if you prefer a more visual approach, should help to capture the key points.
Week 1 – defining internship, comparing different work experiences, reflecting on your work experiences and what you want to gain from this course.
Week 2 – identifying skills gaps and the skills that can be developed though work experience, focusing on your values, building self-confidence and mapping your network of contacts.
Week 3 – understanding the legalities, auditing your skills and reflecting on what you want to gain from work experience, considering financial needs and decision-making techniques.
Week 4 – looking for vacancies, using your network, raising your profile on social media and making your applications stand out.
Week 5 – creating a good first impression, tackling interview questions, video interviews, networking openers and an elevator pitch.
Week 6 – setting SMART goals, generating ideas, talking to senior colleagues, journaling and finding a mentor.
Week 7 – exploring virtual internships, working and communicating remotely and gaining skills.
Discussion
Summarising your learning in one place should illustrate how your knowledge and understanding of internships and other work experience opportunities has developed over the last eight weeks. You can now use that to work out your next steps.
What did your summarising in Activity 1 show you? For example, you may have decided that you don’t want to apply for a formal internship as you can gain the experience you need more easily from volunteering or some other form of work experience. Or maybe you’ve realised that a virtual internship would be ideal in your situation.
You may have pinpointed some key skills that you want to gain or develop further in order to impress the employers you plan to target in the future.
Or perhaps you’ve taken some first steps towards identifying the career path you want to follow and now have a better idea of what to do next in order to get there.
In the next section, you’ll narrow down your options further and start to plan your next move.
OpenLearn - Internships and other work experiences 
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