Last summer, through Princeton’s International Internship Program (IIP) I interned at the social policy unit of the nonprofit think tank, Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) Malaysia. IIP funds students to intern for 8 weeks at a partner organization in over 50 countries. As this was my first ever internship and my first time in Malaysia, I was very excited about the opportunity. However, as I was the only intern at IDEAS from Princeton, and this was my first time living alone abroad, I was also quite nervous going into my internship. 

When I first arrived in Kuala Lumpur, I had a few days before my internship began, so I decided to travel around to see local attractions. One particular site that I remember fondly was the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple located inside a cave system with 200 steps leading up to it. Next to the stairs is the largest statue in Malaysia, the gold and monumental Murugan statue. I remember trekking up the steps and being surprised at the number of monkeys accompanying me on my journey up. I also remember having a refreshing sip of coconut water around the base of the caves and being excited by the lively energy of the site – a great representation of my time in Kuala Lumpur as a whole. 

When I started my internship, I was excited at the sheer breadth of research opportunities I was presented with. I was primarily tasked with conducting data collection and drafting a paper on youth unemployment in the ASEAN region, transcribing interviews, editing case studies, conducting qualitative research, and writing summaries of other academic research. I particularly enjoyed the travel opportunities that were a part of my internship at IDEAS: visiting Malaysia’s Ministry of Health to take notes during the launch of a paper on breast cancer, and traveling to Gua Musang to conduct a workshop on Orang Asli education. The Orang Asli are the Indigenous peoples of Malaysia.

Beyond the travel for my internship, I also had time for some personal travel on the weekends, venturing around Malaysia and Southeast Asia. I went to Penang, and was particularly amazed by the Kek Lok Si temple, a massive Buddhist temple complex that affords a great view over Georgetown, the main town in Penang. I also went to Melaka, and traveled down the river that runs through the town. I was also able to visit my friend in Hanoi, Vietnam and there I tried what is now my favorite Vietnamese dish: bun cha. 

Speaking of trying new food, interning in Kuala Lumpur exposed me to some delicious Malaysian cuisine. I distinctly remember trying char kway teow at Little Penang Cafe at Kuala Lumpur City Center with my friend and loving the spicy, crunchy, savory taste of the dish. I also tried banana leaf, a dish where an assortment of rice, vegetables, curry and meats are laid on a banana leaf. I also had many different types of drinks including teh tarik, a sweet tea drink, bandung, a milky rose syrup drink, and some of the best matcha lattes I have ever had!

Although this experience placed me severely out of my comfort zone, as I had to navigate a new culture and country whilst working, I also loved my internship experience. I grew professionally and became great friends with my co-interns. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to complete an IIP and want to highlight how Princeton offers professional and cultural options for all students – no matter your previous experience. I cannot wait to visit Kuala Lumpur again. 

The search for my final summer at Princeton is finally starting and I couldn’t be more conflicted. While my finance, consulting, and engineering friends already secured their internships, I find myself with a big question mark over my head. Princeton, because of its vast array of opportunities, makes it so hard to decide what’s the best way to spend my last summer. The biggest challenge is not finding something to do but deciding on one thing. Do I continue to research with the lab I’m currently doing my independent work with? Or do I apply for another international internship and spend my summer in a new country? Perhaps, I should stay within the US and intern at a non-profit organization through Princeton Internships in Civic Service (PICS). When people say there are endless opportunities at Princeton, they aren’t lying. As I navigate my choices, I realize I'm preparing for what comes after the orange bubble. It's about equipping myself with skills, experiences, and memories that will shape my career and how I will remember my time here. I decided to do a bit of a rundown on the people at Princeton I reached out to help guide my search. 

 

Professors 

Seminars are one of my favorite class formats at Princeton and I’m currently taking a seminar called “The Psychology of Adversity.” Prof. Rebecca Carey is teaching the course and she is also my advisor for my junior paper. One thing I love about being a part of her seminar and lab is moving from the seminar room to our lab room. I love talking with her about our discussion topics from class and also hearing her insight about doing research. Soon, I’ll be meeting with her to discuss general questions regarding her journey applying to graduate school and her experience throughout. I love to sit with anyone who has the time to talk to me about their experiences because it allows me to gather different perspectives and within that, figure out which route I’d like to take. 

Alumni 

The Princeton Psychology Society recently had a Career Expo where students were able to meet various professionals in the field of psychology. The goal of the event was to have an informal discussion surrounding various career paths and create connections with alumni who were invited to speak. I was excited to talk with an alumnus who was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), self-employed in private practice. Her path to landing as an LCSW was very interesting and it taught me that there is no linear way to achieving my end goal. While I might be trying to find the best way to become a practicing psychologist, her experience shows that I don’t have to be too worried about making all the right decisions. 

Career Center 

The Career Center is such a useful resource for anything related to career planning. I’ve used the resources multiple times whether it be for finding a winter break internship (aka Princeternship, read about mine here), guidance regarding graduate school and this time around – to find a summer internship. I remember my first time stepping into the office, I was a sophomore already worried about graduate school. Now, I’m still worried about graduate school but I’m more focused on what this summer means for my applications. Taking my degree into consideration, the staff at the Career Center advised me to continue with research as that’s a typical route for those applying to graduate school. They also offered other suggestions such as working with children in a camp setting or finding open positions on Handshake (an internal Princeton platform for exploring internal resources and external opportunities). 

 

Princeton Internships in Civic Service (PICS) is a program that connects students with summer internship opportunities at nonprofit and government organizations in a wide variety of fields, ranging anywhere from healthcare to education. PICS is a funded opportunity, with students receiving a lump-sum stipend before the start of the summer. This stipend can be used towards any costs associated with your internship, including housing, food, and transportation. In addition to funding, PICS provides students with a network of resources and alumni to better support them during their internships and beyond. Through PICS, I spent this summer working as a Communications and Development intern at the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF) in Trenton, New Jersey.

The way that PICS works is relatively straightforward. At the end of the fall semester, a list of PICS community partners is released. This means you have about a month to choose up to two organizations to apply to, as well as prepare your application materials, all before the January deadline to submit your application. Interviews are usually held throughout the month of January, and by early to mid-February, you are notified about whether you have been selected for an internship.

When I was first looking into PICS, LALDEF stood out to me as it aligned with my own interests and personal values. LALDEF works to empower immigrants living in Mercer County, helping them navigate the systems and resources necessary for their own self-sufficiency in the United States. This includes access to legal services, citizenship test preparation, ESL classes, and youth mentoring programs. I am very interested in immigration work, and am considering the possibility of at some point working in the nonprofit sphere, so LALDEF made complete sense for me. Additionally, I loved that it was located near campus, as integrating myself more into the community surrounding campus is something I value greatly.

During my nine-week internship, I stayed on campus and took the train every day to Trenton. I worked Monday through Friday, eight hours a day, which meant that every morning, I made the trek from the train station to the office and up the stairs to the third floor, where our office space was located.

Most days after work, I would spend my time staying active, putting together puzzles, reading, and unwinding from the day. The weekends were a great opportunity for me to get off campus, even going into NYC twice over the summer.

The internship itself entailed a wide range of tasks and projects. As an intern working in the Communications and Development department, I was able to interact with the whole LALDEF team. Some of my major projects were designing the 2023 Impact Report and putting together the Fall 2023 Newsletter. The creation of the newsletter involved designing the layout itself, as well as contacting the different program heads to fill the newsletter with content and updates from each program. I was also involved in a variety of different supporting tasks within my department, but within other departments as well. I learned the importance and process of grant-writing, and conducted interviews with past and present clients to assemble testimonials for promotional purposes. One of the most impactful moments of the summer was sitting in on a legal intake interview, where I helped translate a client’s migration story.

All in all, I feel that I gained valuable insight into nonprofit work thanks to my PICS internship. I also learned what I like about different work experiences and environments, and what I would like to do differently in a future internship or job. Princeton-funded opportunities for internships (and research, if that’s more your thing) feel limitless at times. There is truly something for everyone, and the process will feel so much less overwhelming when it's upon you.

“Have you made any friends yet?”

That was the million-dollar question on everyone’s mind. Over the summer, I interned at the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan through Princeton's International Internship Program (IIP). While I had lived alone, I had usually stayed at a student residence where it was easy to make friends. This time I was truly on my own.

Unsurprisingly, every time I called my mom, she wanted to know how I was doing socially. My parents, my program coordinator, even my coworkers — it was the one question they ended a conversation with. It was also the one question I could not seem to answer. Outside of work, the most social interaction I had was probably with the food stand owner near my apartment — but it’s hard to call someone a friend if the only thing you’ve said to them is “Pork rice with egg, please.”

A couple weeks into my internship, the Princeton Alumni Association of Taiwan invited me to a brunch, and who was I to say no to free food? At the brunch, I sat next to Mai, a sophomore from Thailand who was learning Chinese over the summer. We bonded over wanting to visit Jiufen, a town in northeast Taiwan that looks like the setting of “Spirited Away.” And while I did enjoy a wonderful meal and have great conversations with the alumni, as Mai and I exchanged contacts, I also began to carve out my answer to the question everyone had been asking since I landed.

A week later, we made it to Jiufen, despite almost missing the train there. At the teahouse, we learned the ins and outs of Taiwanese tea ceremony. We learned that you should smell the tea before you drink it. We also learned that a little tea goes a long way — the server told us that one set of tea leaves could make at least 15 cups of tea. Although it seemed doable, we learned that even three hours of pouring, waiting, smelling, and drinking was not enough time to get through it all.

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Under the scorching July sun, we did it all. We watched “Oppenheimer,” putting our Chinese reading skills to the test as the subtitles flashed on the screen. We tried Taiwan’s famous pineapple beer, which was more beer than pineapple.

One night, we went to Dadaocheng to watch the fireworks. We navigated the bus system together (and then the little alleyways after it dropped us off a fair distance away from where we expected). We stood amongst the hoards of people, unsure whether to find a good spot or get a drink first. Although the fireworks show was only a few minutes, we hung out by the pier for hours — by the time I got back to my apartment, the streets were full of people getting their midnight snack.

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For our last adventure, we found ourselves drinking tea on yet another mountain. This time, we were sitting with two old men, who were confused about what a Thai and an Australian were doing together in Taiwan. That seemed to be the second big question of the summer: “How do you two know each other?” The answer to this one was much more convoluted. But, having already explained it a few times to other people, we were much better rehearsed in front of these two men. I’m not sure how much my Chinese reading skills improved, but I definitely became fluent in reciting our origin story.

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This summer, I was faced with two pretty big questions. But after weeks of thinking, here are my final answers — yes, I did make a new friend and as for how we know each other… let's just say 这有点复杂 (it’s a little complicated).

Every summer, a great number of Princeton students, both undergraduate and graduate, move to the nation’s capital for internship, job and research opportunities. They pursue a wide range of positions, from working for members of congress, getting hands-on policy experience to getting involved with nonprofits.

The Princeton in Washington (PIW) program, which is run by the Center for Career Development, supports students and young alumni in the D.C. area spending their summers living out Princeton's informal motto: "Princeton in the nation's service and the service of humanity." I had the unique opportunity to serve as the student coordinator for PIW this summer.

PIW runs throughout June and July, offering Princetonians in Washington, D.C. unique opportunities to connect with alumni in government and policy, technology, law, nonprofit, journalism and more. As a part of PIW, participants are able to meet high-profile alumni at the top of their fields, learn more about various career paths and make meaningful connections not only with alumni, but also other students. Attending alumni panel discussions, visiting some of the most renowned institutions for change and participating in casual social events — all of these things gave us, Princeton students and young alumni in D.C., a chance to build our own community in the city over the summer and create new friendships.

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Some of the highlights of PIW 2023 include a visit to the Federal Reserve with Chair Jerome Powell '75, conversations with various members of Congress including Terri Sewell '86, Jeff Merkley *82, John Sarbanes '84, and Derek Kilmer '96, a roundtable discussion with General Mark Milley '80 at the Pentagon, and a tour of the ESPN studios with investigative reporter Tisha Thompson '99. Through these events, participants were able to ask questions, hear about the speakers’ career paths and any advice they may have, and connect with them to expand their network. 

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As the student coordinator, it was an honor to be able to design these programs and offer a series of events for the summer to help other Princeton students in their career paths. Behind the scenes, I reached out to alumni and coordinated events and logistics, created content to promote programs, and communicated with the PIW community — all of which helped improve my organizational and interpersonal skills. Also, invaluably, I had the privilege to attend every event as PIW coordinator, which deepened my interests in the fields of public and international policy.

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My biggest takeaway from PIW is that there is not one set path, one set answer, or a correct major, internship, or fellowship to pursue. Many of the alumni who we looked up to during these events for inspiration, did not have a complete idea of their careers from the beginning. Instead, it was trying new things that allowed them to succeed. We, as college students, often face constant pressure to have everything figured out and have our career path mapped out to minute details to be successful, so it was relieving to hear this kind of advice from Princeton alumni, and this reassurance is one of the many takeaways from PIW, on top of the relationships built with not just the alumni but also with other Princeton students. 

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It was the best of times … it was the worst of times… it was Colombia. This summer I spent two months in Bogota, Colombia for my International Internship Program (IIP) with Sisma Mujer. Colombia caught me by surprise because I fell in love with the country instantly. The fast-paced motorcycles but the steady working environment, the cold air but the beaming sun. There were numerous reasons for me to fall in love but I can’t seem to settle on one. Every day felt like a new adventure, whether it be navigating the wobbly sidewalks or taking day trips to cities like Guatavita, Villa de Leyva and Fosca. The days seemed to fly by until I noticed I only had a few days left before I would have to say goodbye. For that reason, I’d like to do a bit of a highlight reel, sharing some of my favorite moments in Colombia. 

Guatavita 

Joining me in Bogota were six other Princeton students with different IIP’s. From Politics majors to Architecture and MAE (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), we were all there for different reasons. During our time in Colombia, we were connected with a provider service called Intern Colombia and we were able to take several trips to surrounding cities. Guatavita was our first trip as a group and it had a six a.m. call time. All of us were sleeping on the ride over but the hike up made everyone’s energy pick up. We ended the day with a quick boat ride, one of us even got to steer the wheel! 

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Villa de Levya

Jugo de mango is arguably one of the best drinks I’ve had. If a restaurant or coffee shop had it, I would order it instantly. Villa de Levya was memorable for many reasons but it was also my first time going horseback riding. I think I was the most intimidated out of the group, mainly because my horse decided to go rogue but I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

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Fosca

The waterfalls at Fosca truly humbled me. They were breathtaking but also the path to get to them was filled with countless slips. By the time I got to the first waterfall, my leggings were stained with mud, my shoes completely destroyed and I was tired of slipping on nothing. My clumsiness decided to star front and center that day but I didn’t allow it to affect my hike up. I was notably exhausted but the views made everything worth it and the people I walked with also made it that much better. 

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Cali

Our first solo trip without Intern Colombia consisted of an hour-long plane ride to the beautiful city of Cali, Colombia. We visited the Cali Zoo alongside a rocky river and tasted some of the most interesting flavors of ice cream like yogurt with oregano and chicharron. Cali was such a unique city, it was a totally different vibe from Bogota and not just because of the heat but also its calm charm. 

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In the end, the worst of times wasn’t the few mishaps we had along the way but having to say goodbye to a place I called home for two months. I’m so grateful for having this opportunity thanks to the Office of International Programs (OIP) and I'm ready to add more memories like these to my time at Princeton (stay tuned for Denmark 2024!).

One beautiful aspect of Princeton’s academic calendar is the month-long break all undergraduates are given between the fall and spring semesters. While many may take this time to spend with their loved ones, travel or pick up a new hobby, a select few decide to take a portion of their break and complete a Princeternship. What is a Princeternship, you might ask? The Princeternship program is hosted by the Center for Career Development and is offered by Princeton alumni to undergraduates. These internships are meant to allow students to observe a field they are interested in and form connections with alumni and employers. There is a wide variety of options available ranging from Business to Healthcare to Law and Social Impact. I decided to spend a week at the New York Office of Mental Health with Dr. Fuertes in the Children’s Unit. 

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Throughout the week, another Princeton intern and I observed Dr. Fuertes as he performed intake assessments and discharges, along with weekly meetings with certain patients. We met with six psychiatric patients, ranging from 8-15 years old, and asked them questions about their treatment and safety planning. As an undergraduate psychology major, there is little to no opportunity to get shadowing experience at a hospital like this or any clinical setting. I was actively learning while shadowing Dr. Fuertes as I didn’t just get to listen to the conversations he was having with patients but I was able to ask my own questions about their treatment and experience. Once Dr. Fuertes found out about our interest in clinical psychology, he connected us with other staff in the children's unit including a musical therapist, a clinical psychologist and a licensed social worker. This was a great opportunity to be able to meet with different professionals and learn about their experience in the hospital and the industry in general. I had direct insight into the different career paths I’ve been debating on pursuing, and hearing about their career experience made it easier to understand what my future could look like. 

I interacted with a patient in music therapy and saw how effective this treatment option was for them, a form of care I would have never considered beforehand. I was able to sit on a family therapy session that needed to take place before a patient got discharged. This interaction demonstrated the importance of ensuring that the parents are prepared to support their child’s safety planning before they return home. All of these different interactions showed me the collective effort it takes in a hospital setting such as the one Dr. Fuertes works in. Every day they would have daily meetings to discuss patient conditions, medications and treatments. Not only this, but when given new referrals, they would discuss whether or not to admit them as a team. While the internship was very informal as we had no set tasks or projects, there was much to learn just from shadowing Dr. Fuertes and the other staff. 

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Overall, I appreciated the time I spent shadowing Dr. Fuertes and all the staff at the children’s unit. If it weren’t for this experience provided by the strong alumni network at Princeton, I wouldn’t have been exposed to this type of setting before reaching graduate school. I also didn’t have a financial burden when it came to paying for the trip to Binghamton, NY, thanks to SIFP (Scholars Institute Fellows Program). I budgeted the whole trip and was able to stay within a budget for all the costs including housing, transportation, food and other miscellaneous costs. Being able to form these connections and relationships with professionals was truly amazing and I am glad that because of SIFP and the Career Center of Development, I was able to do so.

Princeton offers students many ways to get involved outside of the classroom with its 500+ different student-run organizations and activities. For those interested in service and social impact, I have just the group for you! Housed within our Pace Center for Civic Engagement, the Service Focus program is intended for rising sophomores looking to make a difference and learn a little in the process. It runs from the spring of your first-year to the spring of your sophomore year and is made up of 3 major components:

1. Summer Service Experience/Internship

During the summer between their first and second years, all Service Focus students engage in some sort of funded service experience or project that aligns with their interests. For instance, I got to intern with award-winning documentary specialist and Princeton professor Purcell Carson. With her organization, The Trenton Project, we recently released a new documentary titled “What’s in a Name?”, which centers around the history of desegregation at Trenton’s Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School. Our team of six interns was involved in all aspects of the film’s creation including: storyboarding, conducting interviews, editing, etc. It was truly an unforgettable experience, and I learned so much.

And if you don’t know where or how to find a summer service internship, no worries! The Service Focus program is there to help guide you in finding one, whether that be through a Princeton program, like mine, or one with an outside organization.

2. Service Cohort

When you sign up for Service Focus, you can indicate what area(s) of service interest you most, with options ranging from Sustainability to Health & Care to Race, Migration and Belonging. (Note: it doesn’t necessarily have to relate to your summer service experience!) This helps you eventually be placed into a cohort, where you’ll meet other students that share your passion. Given my personal experience with educational opportunity, I opted for the Education & Access Cohort.

Over the past few months, my cohort has met weekly to discuss some of the most pressing educational issues today and how we might alleviate them. We’ve also engaged in fun activities like watching episodes of ABC’s "Abbott Elementary" and listening to podcasts. Not to mention we get free food each meeting from a local restaurant! Our group really offers an informal way to discuss service ideas, while engaging with other members of the Princeton community with similar passions who we might not have met on-campus otherwise!

3. ProCES Course

The last element of the program ties in the academic curriculum to our commitment to service. Service Focus members are required to take at least one ProCES-designated course sometime during their sophomore year. ProCES is the nickname for Princeton’s Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship. On their website, you can not only find a list of these ProCES classes, but other service-oriented projects and opportunities that students can partake in.

Service Focus students also have the option to petition a course that isn’t officially indicated as a ProCES course, but that they feel presents opportunities for community engagement and service learning. What’s great about this is that it both encourages student advocacy and allows us to identify other creative ways that classes may connect to service. And, once again, the course you take doesn’t even necessarily have to be related to your summer experience or your cohort topic. For example, for my ProCES course, I’m currently thinking about taking SPI387: Education Policy in the United States, or I may branch out and try DAN306: Introduction to Radical Access: Disability Justice in the Arts. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even take both! 

Overall, Service Focus truly offers a unique chance to infuse your service interests with your academic experience, and I highly encourage any student even slightly interested to apply. Visit the Service Focus website to learn more!

Over my summers, I've performed research at Princeton through internships funded by the High Meadows Environmental Institute. I've really liked both experiences so far, but they've been incredibly different, not only being in different departments but requiring very different skill sets. Two summers ago, I worked remotely from home with the Interfacial Water Group in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department running simulations of contaminants in water and air. I connected to the Princeton computing clusters from my laptop, and Professor Bourg taught me over Zoom how to create files to run and submit to the supercomputer. This past summer, I worked in the Rand Lab in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department to try to create energy-efficient OLEDs. This work required using specialized equipment like the spin coater and thermal evaporator located only in lab B427. The two internships have been useful in allowing me to reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of coding lab work and manual lab work.

For both types of research, there was a steep learning curve at the beginning. For molecular dynamics simulations, I had to become familiar with the coding language of the software LAMMPS, in order to create input files to run, and with the scheduling language "slurm" as well as the Linux command line for submitting files to the supercomputer. In the Rand lab, a different set of abilities are required. The lab demands physical dexterity that is not required for running simulations, such as being able to insert my hands into the gloves that enter the nitrogen glovebox (easier said than done) and handling the fragile glass substrates with tweezers through the thick glovebox gloves. It also demands a certain vigilance, as one wrong move could spill an acid onto the floor or disturb someone's multi-day experiment.

I like the convenience of running simulations, in that I can work at it whenever I choose and from any location with a VPN connection. And at an earlier point in my OLED internship, I'm was much more familiar with running simulations than working in the lab, therefore simulations felt much more comfortable to me than the newness of the Rand lab. But there is something rewarding about seeing tangible and physical results that I achieve in the lab, like handling a shiny and finished OLED or viewing the color transformation of a compound I synthesize. I don't get quite the same feeling from seeing a display on a computer screen of a simulation I run as when I can hold the physical result of my work.

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There are other similarities between the two types of research aside from the learning curves. For instance, both lab groups hold weekly group meetings where a few members of the group give updates on their projects, asking the Head Principal Investigator (PI) and the other group members for feedback. There is a strong sense of community among the different graduate and undergraduate students in each group, revealed in the thoughtful advice they offer to one another. For instance, at a group meeting I spoke about my attempt with my mentor, Jesse, to synthesize a certain solution to use as one of the layers of our OLEDs. I described our problem getting the powder to fully disperse in alcohol. One of the graduate students mentioned that she knows several researchers from a group in France who work specifically on synthesizing solutions like the one we're attempting to create, and she offered to put me in contact with them. I'm really grateful to have had the chance to work in two very different fields.

Content warning: mention of autopsy and graphic images of human anatomy

One cool opportunity I didn’t know about before coming to Princeton was the Princeternship program. Princeternships are a unique chance to get insight into a career of interest through one or more Princeton alumni. They take place over winter break and can range from a few days of shadowing to a few weeks of working on a project. This past year, more than 180 in-person and virtual Princeternships were available in the fields of Arts, Culture, Media & Entertainment; Engineering, Science & Technology; Business; Healthcare; Social Impact; and Law. I had the privilege of participating in a two-day virtual Princeternship at the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, hosted by Dr. Alice Werner. Together with four other Princeterns, I learned about Dr. Werner’s specialty, pediatric pathology, and got a glimpse into the operation of the hospital’s numerous departments. 

Prior to the Princeternship, Dr. Werner assigned each of us a topic to prepare a 10-15 minute presentation on, and we each gave our presentation when it was relevant to what we were discussing. I presented on the heel stick, a type of newborn screening, and the differences in screening in different states.

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We were first introduced to some of the equipment and analytical techniques used in the hospital’s medical laboratory. One of my fellow Princeterns presented on the MALDI Biotyper, which identifies microorganisms using mass spectrometry. We spent the majority of our time observing slides of all kinds of samples under the microscope, including blood, cerebrospinal fluid and tumor biopsies. The virtual format was convenient because I could join from the comfort of my home and did not need to arrange travel or accommodation for during and after the Princeternship. Since I would have had to leave home several weeks earlier if the Princeternship were in-person, I was also able to enjoy some more time with my family. In addition, since Dr. Werner does a lot of work on the microscope and the computer, it was easy to see what she was looking at, as opposed to having six people crowded around one computer screen. 

On the first day, Dr. Werner “brought us to work” and took us through a normal morning as a clinical pathologist. She brought up the medical history and lab results of the patient whose sample she was tasked with analyzing, then showed us the slide under the microscope and explained what she saw. For example, I learned that reactive lymphocytes in the blood, identified by their large size and turquoise cytoplasm, are an indication of viral infection. We sometimes went back to the doctor’s note or lab results to piece together an explanation of what we were seeing. It was fascinating to participate in Dr. Werner’s thought process in real time, and I was impressed by all the types of body fluids we can observe under the microscope and the variety of clues they can give about one’s health and the potential cause of their disease. It felt like going behind the scenes of a normal doctor’s visit: literally, because Dr. Werner entered notes which the doctor interacting with the patient would use to develop their treatment plan, and metaphorically, because we could dive right into the cells at the root of the problem. 

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On the second day, we attended the hospital’s Daily Safety Briefing where representatives from each department reported any concerns from the last 24 hours. For the remainder of the day, Dr. Werner showed us anatomical pathology slides she had been collecting as well as the corresponding MRI and ultrasound scans to give us more context to the cases. As an anatomical pathologist, Dr. Werner sometimes performs autopsies and she showed us an image of a deceased newborn baby with gastroschisis, a defect where some of the baby’s intestines are not enclosed in the body. She then showed us the autopsy picture exposing the baby’s internal organs, and I must admit, I was both shocked and mesmerized. Part of me was desperate to look away because it felt wrong to see a baby like this, but another part of me still wanted to learn what Dr. Werner had to share. As a pre-medicine student, I will likely have to face this conflict often in the future. I hope to always hold a deep respect for the patient and their family and gratitude for their willingness to allow us to learn everything we can from their loss. I believe that image will stick with me for years to come because I was reminded of the fragility of life which I usually take for granted.

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This Princeternship taught me about a specialty that I knew almost nothing about and gave me an appreciation for medical labs and the technicians, chemists, engineers and pathologists who make it possible for us to analyze specimens and thereby understand illnesses much better. Although I realized that I am probably not interested in pursuing pathology because I would like to interact with patients and do a bit more with my hands, I learned that pathology is a fascinating and extremely important specialty which also allows providers to have a regular work schedule.

A huge thank you to the Center for Career Development for this enlightening opportunity, and I hope to participate in another Princeternship in the future!