Externships Beneficial for Both Students and Alums
As incoming freshman leaves home for the first time, they arrive at Penn State faced with decisions. For science students, their easiest decision of all may be finding a career path because of a helpful externship! The Eberly College of Science offers dozens of externships to choose from that last about one-to-four days in May when students return home. Externships are for students to job shadow science professionals in their workplace. Almost all externship hosts are Penn State science alumni, giving a common background for the extern and host. For one science alumni host, being able to share his career with younger students is extremely fulfilling. Matthew Goss is a 2004 graduate with a physics degree and mathematics minor. He is now a radiation oncology physicist at RadAmerica in Baltimore. His field of medical physics is fairly new and uncommon, so he enjoys sharing it with science students. “I want to make sure they get a lot of out if,” Matt said. “I like to show them how physics relates to medicine.”
When Matt is available to host externs, he takes them into the operating room to see procedures and shows them the high-technology equipment used to measure and distribute radiation to cancer patients. “It gives me perspective to try and explain what I do,” Matt said. “It definitely keeps me on my toes.”
Matt said he enjoys talking with his externs about Penn State. “It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s great to reminisce with them.”
Two current science students who have recently completed externships agree that having Penn State Science alumni as their hosts allowed them to connect on a personal level.
“Penn State was the common thread that broke the ice,” said Justin Abbatemarco, a junior biochemistry and molecular biology major who has completed two externships.
Junior biology major Patrick Buckley said he and his host actually lived in the same residence hall and went to the same church. “Externing is a great way to make a contact with an alumni who shares interests of yours and already showed an interest in you just by being available.”
Patrick shadowed a pediatrician for low-income families at a children’s health center that is part of the Reading Hospital. He watched her daily activities where she mostly interacted with parents, some of which spoke another language or were not literate. “It was interesting to pick her brain about her job and how she got there,” Pat said.
He was approached by his host to start a “Reach Out and Read” chapter in Reading, which is a nonprofit organization focusing on low-income families that promotes early literacy by giving books to families at doctor visits and prescribing reading.
Pat said he was honored the pediatrician host approached him with this project. “I could tell it was really important to her, but she didn’t really have the time,” Pat said. “For me, it was the least I could do to help her out after she showed me around for a week, especially after I could see the patients that she was doing this for. There really was a need for books for these children.”
Justin, on the other hand, worked more behind the scenes at Main Line Health in Philadelphia, focusing on hematology and immunology. He worked in the labs where all blood tests come in on conveyer belts, computers automatically test the blood, and the ones that need personal attention are distributed out. “It allowed me to see a different side of medicine,” Justin said. “I got to see a full view of one part of making a diagnoses—all the test results.”
He said he was able to go back to his Penn State science classes and have a better understanding of what goes on scientifically. “I apply my externship to my coursework. It makes school more enjoyable,” Justin said.
Justin said his externship positively confirmed that he wants to go into the medical field in the future. “It made me more open-minded and expanded my knowledge of medical field,” Justin said. “It helped me accomplish my end goal, and it solidified where I want to go.”
However, for Pat, his externship showed him that he had some reconsidering to do about the medical field. He said it probably isn’t what he wants to do in the future, and he now knows that only because of shadowing that field. “It was a great experience, but it really made me think about what I wanted,” Pat said. “It made me think that this isn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but it got the ball rolling exploring other opportunities.”
For Matt, hosting externs is rewarding for both him and the students. He said he’s excited about what he does, so it’s nice to share it with somebody. For the students, he said, it benefits them in that they find out what they do or do not want to pursue for the future. He said in the end, he just hopes students take something away from the experience. “It’s great just to be able to teach someone something they’ve never seen before.”