Technical Assistance and Research Fellow Reflects on Her Summer 2024 Internship Experience

This summer I had the opportunity to intern at the National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) and work with the Technical Assistance and Research Center (TARC) team. Over the 10 weeks, I assisted in numerous projects, attended many internal briefs, and gained a wide range of knowledge.

I was excited to intern at NCUIH as I am going into my senior year at the University of Florida. This upcoming spring I will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Systems. After meeting with Dr. Kimberly Fowler and learning more about what the TARC team does I knew that not only was I going to gain the experience needed to work in this industry, but I was also going to enjoy it.

My favorite project was creating an infographic based on the “Thematic Analysis of Traditional Foods Programs at Urban Indian Organizations”. Working with Nahla Holland and Margot Bailowitz, we created a vision of how the infographic should look and what information we wanted to convey. I loved that I was given a lot of stylistic freedom in making this infographic as I would consider myself a creative person and it’s not often that I can showcase this trait in technical fields. After creating multiple drafts, we met with the Communications and Graphic Design team, where even more drafts were made. This project taught me many things, like how to communicate with different departments and how much effort goes into something we view as simple. But most importantly, I learned how to take constructive criticism from multiple people. I was appreciative of the feedback I received as it allowed me to deliver the best results.