Internship has influenced my college and career plans. Before internship I wanted to go to college, major in Biology, minor in forensic sciences and become a forensic scientist dealing with DNA. Throughout this internship I have talked to my mentor about how her line of forensics is different from the DNA/crime side of it. Although it is very different, the basis of it is similar. Daily life consists lots of sitting and close analyzation. After internship, I realized this is not something I would enjoy doing everyday. My whole college path was leading me to a career I was not interested in. Seeing this, I decided to look into different college and career paths I could possibly take after high school. I will most likely keep my original major the same (Biology) or do something along the lines of that. I am considering going into the medical field after college so, I have been looking at better colleges geared towards that, rather than forensics.
My mentor did not find this profession until she was in her 50's. She loves it, but she knows that this type of work is not for everyone. We talked about it on many different occasions about how my personality type would fit in a lab environment. I came to the conclusion that it wouldn't. I need to be in a fast pace, always moving environment. I want to see new things everyday and this type of profession doesn't give me that opportunity. Overall, I believe that my college and career path have changed a lot throughout my internship and I am looking into many different paths now. .
3 Comments
There were many assignments and other projects that I did, but I can not share due to legality issues. These were a few of the more generic things I did during internship. Scroll over pictures for captions. I believe that I have made a meaningful contribution to my workplace. From the beginning I have tried to do anything I can to help my mentor and her office. I have done work to help her office, such as moving boxes, filing and organizing. I have also helped her with new cases by copying papers, making signature boxes and helping analyze. I have also worked on my project, which is a poster presentation for my mentor to present at an upcoming conference. I believe and hope that all the work and effort I have out into this office is helping her business.
I think my work as an intern is important to my education because I am gaining many skills here that I haven’t before. I feel like I am making a difference here. I am learning many skills here that I haven’t at school. I have been forced to stay focused, socialize less and finish all my work on time. I try to get in and all my work finished fast, which is helpful and reflects who I am. SOmetimes I am ahead of my mentor and she tells me that I need to slow down, but I think that’s just another experience that I don’t get at High Tech. My project was very open ended. My mentor gave me the assignment; to make a poster presentation. She told me to make it any way that I wanted. I was lost, I didn’t know what should be on the poster or the research I would need to conduct to get the poster completed. THis was definitely something that I had to learn on my own. To turn this idea into a real project I wrote out everything that I wanted to be on it and all the questions I had about the poster. I brought this to my mentor and had a ten minute discussion and got all my questions answered. After this, I took it into my own hands and did what I think is right. Now, I have made excellent progress on my poster and I feel that I made the product according to what I want it to look like. Through internship, I have gained the appreciation of self-motivation and creating your own schedule. In the workplace, you have to be much more self sufficient than in normal school. When I am given a job or project I know that I need to learn and do it on my own. Since my mentor as her own work to complete in a day I have had to figure out a lot around the office. This was a bit difficult at first, but I am grateful for it. I feel that this skill will help me in the future because I learned how to do things for myself without lots of guidelines. This internship helped me a lot for my life past high school. I thought I wanted to go into forensics and be a scientist, but I was wrong. This internship helped me realize that being a forensic scientist isn’t for me. The career is full of tedious, boring work that I am not interested in. I’ve been speaking to my mentor about the difference of being a forensic document examiner and a forensic DNA analyst. Although there is a large difference, it is still a similar type of work. Lots of sitting and doing independent work. As far-fetched as it sounds, this internship has changed my entire college and career path and I am deciding to move into something else. By changing my career path, I have influenced the direction of my life. I was very excited to start my internship and it took a turn I didn’t expect. I never thought I would walk out with a new career idea. Forensics is what interested me for years and now, because of internship I am changing that. I am very glad I realized that now before college or being in the career. I find it very interesting that this internship did change my perspective so much. In my internship I cannot think of anytimes that self-advocacy was needed. In the very beginning, before the initial start date I had a meeting with my mentor to give more information about internship. I tried to advocate for myself right in the beginning by saying that this internship is an opportunity to get an experience in the real world. I wanted to make sure that her intention was for me to do real work and not get coffee or only complete busy work. I believe that that was advocating for myself and my education right in the beginning. I am doing many different things to become a memorable intern. Every time we talk about my project or a new job for me to do I take notes to be able to look back on. On the first day I got to know my mentor and being alone together for 6-7 hours a day I get to see a lot of her responsibilities and how I am able to help her in the office. I show up exactly on time every day. I am doing as much as I can to become a memorable intern and I hope that I am benefiting her business.
I plan on testing a product and creating a poster presentation about my findings for my mentor to present. The product is used to cover any information that is not wanted to be see (addresses, medication/personal information etc). I plan on using this product on many different materials and testing it in different ways to see if it truly works. The two questions I will be addressing and answering in the presentation are : ‘Is this a good product for everyday usage in a household?’ and ‘Is this product good enough that a document examiner can not see the contents underneath?’. To answer the first question I will test the product and write a report on my findings, by just simply looking at the documents. To answer the second question I will use tools in her lab to conclude whether this product is good enough that a document examiner cannot see through it. I will be testing this product on a black ink pen, blue ink pen, inkjet print out, laser print out and a typewriter print out. I will be keeping my results and come up with a conclusion of the product based on the results. After I finish my results, I will be creating a poster presentation about my findings for her to present at an upcoming event. The skills I will need to succeed are patience, focus and determination. I need to be patient and determined because, as my mentor said, this is a very tedious project and I will have to try lots of things over again. I will also need to be able to focus because I feel that this project will take a lot of time and being able to focus and get my work done in time will help me have a better product. I will definitely need support from my mentor because many of the ways I am testing are things I have never done before. I will be using her lab to conduct research on alternate light sources and microscopic tools on the images. I will need her to help guide me on how to get my project done correctly. I asked my mentor many questions about her company and exactly what her position is. My mentor, Linda Mitchell, is a Forensic Document Examiner. She owns her own private practice where people come to her when they need an expert opinion on a document in question (a document in question is a document with a signature that may have been forged). She examines documents containing handwriting on contents in dispute to form an opinion on the authenticity of a signature and identify the writer and testify her findings in court. She chose to open a business in this field because she was researching a handwriting project, discovered the career of a questioned document examiner and decided that she loved it and wanted to do it for the rest of her life. I asked what I should know about the career before diving head first into the internship. She told me that I should know that most work is to be done sitting at a desk, also that it is very tedious and boring. She mentioned that this is a “one man business”, meaning she does everything herself, from business to forensics to the housekeeping. I was interested in hearing what I should know about her company specifically; she told me that it is very flexible and she creates all the rules because she is her own boss. She personally believes that a career in this area is satisfying. Every case is challenging and different; she likes to be analytical and enjoys helping people who have been wronged.
To become a forensic document examiner, you must have a bachelors of science degree and three years of hands on, one-on-one internship with a qualified trainer. During the internship you learn handwriting identification, use of lab equipment, use of alternative light sources, microscopic measuring, report writing, how to testify properly, ink differentiation, paper manufacturing, print processes, office machinery, typewriter identification, fingerprint development and public speaking. During a typical work day you answer calls, help new people understand the process, update the regular clients and write reports. As a document examiner, it is important to get along with others; success relies on being able to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, clients and attorneys. Some advice I received about working here is that I need to keep my ears open because there will be times where she won’t be able to explain the work to me and I will have to figure it out for my own. Skills needed to thrive in this internship are the ability to focus, be patient, and it helps to have knowledge of the justice system. She talked to me about her income. She explained that this is a different type of career and she doesn’t get a steady paycheck. The amount of money she makes heavily depends on how busy she is at the time. Sometimes she will have ten cases going on at once and other times she has none. I have learned that my mentor truly likes helping people who have been hurt or wronged. She does pro bono cases and puts a lot more time into her work than she lets her clients know. She puts forth the extra effort and doesn’t expect more money in return, which I believe says a lot about who she is. A skill that I will definitely approve on during my internship is the ability to focus. Personally, I have a very hard time sitting and doing the same thing for hours at a time, but that is primarily what this job is, so I will need to improve on that skill heavily. The commute to and from internship is very easy; I drive myself and it is much closer to my house than the school is. Something from the workplace that strikes me is the amount of calls she receives and how busy it is. Listening to the phone calls and hearing her clients talk was one of the most enjoyable parts of my first day. This strikes me because I was much more involved in the cases than I thought she would allow me to be. Something that striked me about my colleague was how much she told me in just one day. On just the first day she let me work on two cases, look through all her old cases, let me listen to two new client calls and walked through the process of creating a handwriting analysis report. My mentor is very nice and helpful. She uses every opportunity to teach me and that makes me feel like I am helping her and will gain new experiences in her company. A part of being a forensic document examiner that surprised me most is that either it is really busy or have nothing more than busy work to do. There seems to be no in between. There are a lot more cases going on at once than I originally expected, as well. On my first day, we were working on three different cases at once and finished two of them. I am very excited to start my project. I am going to get to test products using the lab materials to see how effective they are. I am also going to get to work on a case mostly by myself, with assistance to keep me on track. I think that once I start my project it will become very fast pace and I will learn a lot about forensic documentation. I am slightly worried about the work I will be doing. I am worried that I will get into a routine of doing the same thing for a month. I hope this will not happen, but if it does I still believe I will learn a lot. If this does happen, I also think I will learn new skills and will benefit her company by helping.
I am interning for a Forensic Document Examiner in private practice. Clients call her when they need to know anything about handwriting or signatures, as she is the "expert". Typical cases she gets involve the forging of signatures, and she figures out if the documents are forged or edited. A typical day at this job includes lots of sitting and paperwork. She often looks through old signatures and matches them up to prove whether they are forged or not.
A benefit of her job is that she creates all her own policies. She controls the dress code and her hours. On days she has appointments, she works more and some days she doesn't come into the office, or comes in late. It doesn't matter if she is absent or tardy, because she is her own boss. The dress code is very relaxed. On days in the office, casual clothes are acceptable (leggings, jeans, t-shirt, ect.) On court days, formal clothes are required (dress, slacks, ect.) On my career day I was able to go into the office and get a better feel for the company. I found out that it is less 'forensics' and more paperwork. This was slightly shocking because I thought she did a lot ore lab work, but I once I officially start she will teach me a lot about forensics. She put me to work right away and I got to listen to a conference call, as well as help prepare for a case. We also got to talk about my project a little bit. I expect there to be lots of paper and computer work there, throughout my internship. I think I will also learn a lot about the technology used to investigate her cases. I feel that skills I learned in Biology will help me thrive in this internship. In bio, we need to be able to take instruction and include them into our work, at a rather quick pace. When at my internship, I am going to have to take instructions and incorporate it quickly into my work. |