The Leading Internships for New Knowledge (LINK) program is an integral piece of the Animas High School curriculum as it exemplifies the schools belief in the value of student-centered, personalized instruction that connects learning to the adult world. LINK takes students for a three week internship beyond the classroom walls in order to clarify personal, college and career goals while teaching invaluable professional skills and life lessons.
My LINK was at the Durango Hanger Clinic which is a national company providing prosthetics to amputees. hangerclinic.com/about/Pages/default.aspx
My LINK was at the Durango Hanger Clinic which is a national company providing prosthetics to amputees. hangerclinic.com/about/Pages/default.aspx
Anticipation and Reflection
I had to apply to get this internship, it was my first choice. There weren't many challenges involved in this process since I had the assistance of our LINK placement coordinator and she has done this hundreds of times. The only issue we ran into was my mentor is very busy and we had to track him down to get the paperwork done prior to starting the internship.
I chose this internship because prosthetic engineering was a field that I was considering as a career. From this experience I hoped to gain enough knowledge about the career to determine if this is something I would like to pursue in the future. I wanted to bring my creative problem solving skills to this internship, thinking this would be an asset in this particular field. I hope I left a good impression on my mentor and the patients I was able to help with their prosthetics.
I chose this internship because prosthetic engineering was a field that I was considering as a career. From this experience I hoped to gain enough knowledge about the career to determine if this is something I would like to pursue in the future. I wanted to bring my creative problem solving skills to this internship, thinking this would be an asset in this particular field. I hope I left a good impression on my mentor and the patients I was able to help with their prosthetics.
Link Project
For my link project, I built a patient a prosthetic swim leg from start to finish. This was a very complicated and tedious process. We started by making a copy of her existing socket by filling it with soft rubber to make a mold which is a positive thing in space. Then we made a cast of the mold which we could fill with plaster. We then used a vacuum to pull hot plastic around the plaster to make a perfect replica which we use as a "check socket". This is a socket that the patient can come in and try out before we make the final product. I then took the check socket down to Albuquerque and worked with the lab technicians there to create a carbon fiber prosthetic. We used wax which we later melted out to make the limb with as little metal on it as possible. The limb was then ready for delivery.
Reflection
Going into this link I didn't have any skills that would be appropriate for this type of work. I do have good critical thinking and problem-solving skills and I thought these would be useful. I was ready to work hard and ask a lot of appropriate questions but that was about all I had to offer.
The most important skills that I developed during my link were my people skills and organization. I spent a lot of time organizing the work areas for the office and talking with patients. I learned to value of listening to people's stories and the value of having an organized work station.
Some of the shortcomings I had coming into the link were vocabulary and general knowledge of the field. By the time I was done, I could have an intelligent conversation with my mentor about patients - using all the abbreviations that are used within the field.
In the end, this experience gave me the insight I needed to make a decision about going into this field. Prosthetics has more patient care and less engineering/fabrication than I had originally thought, and there is more paperwork and computer work than I am interested in doing for a career. Instead, I would pursue mechanical engineering or stick with commercial fishing and be an engineer in the offseason.
The most important skills that I developed during my link were my people skills and organization. I spent a lot of time organizing the work areas for the office and talking with patients. I learned to value of listening to people's stories and the value of having an organized work station.
Some of the shortcomings I had coming into the link were vocabulary and general knowledge of the field. By the time I was done, I could have an intelligent conversation with my mentor about patients - using all the abbreviations that are used within the field.
In the end, this experience gave me the insight I needed to make a decision about going into this field. Prosthetics has more patient care and less engineering/fabrication than I had originally thought, and there is more paperwork and computer work than I am interested in doing for a career. Instead, I would pursue mechanical engineering or stick with commercial fishing and be an engineer in the offseason.