An important part of experiential learning is what you learn about yourself. Being able to look back on your experience and evaluate your learning provides valuable information for you to build on. We often focus on external evaluations—what our supervisor or instructor tells us about our performance. They can speak to what they observed, but you are the best judge to assess what you have learned individually and how you have changed internally.

Self-evaluation can often help you see your accomplishments more clearly, as well as your challenges (figure 9.1). Both of these will be meaningful as you create a professional path forward.

Self-Reflection versus Self Criticism

Self-reflection is essential throughout an internship because this process allows you to notice your style, make adjustments, see your growth, and learn how to better take care of your most valuable tool in human services work, namely, yourself. However, this type of evaluation plays a more prominent role as the internship draws to a close. Naturally, endings invite people to reminisce, evaluate, and reflect on the experience.

Hopefully, there were parts of the internship that were enjoyable. Perhaps you notice a substantial increase in both your competence and confidence. Of course, it is also likely that some awkward or unpleasant things happened as well. They are probably best understood as “side effects” of the learning process as they often involve making mistakes or working through a difficult period. Useful self-assessments do require a certain degree of honesty about yourself and your contributions during the internship — good, bad, and in between. Being honest in this way also helps one to discover new insights and learn from the successes and mistakes made during the internship.

This type of openness to your experience is also essential for identifying the skills you have, as well as those that you need to acquire or refine. Being honest with yourself, including not being overcritical, often helps people see and appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of their styles. Accurate self-assessment can also provide paths to discovering your real interests, talents, values, and abilities. Even an unexciting and unsatisfying internship can be helpful in this regard because sometimes learning what you do not like is important, too. Both positive and negative internship experiences can help you find your way to a satisfying career path.

An excellent place to start in the self-evaluation process would be to reflect on the beginning of the internship, back when you were looking for a site. The internship site is supposed to allow you to start getting the experience you need to become a good human services professional. Looking back to the very beginning of your internship experience enables you to see how far you have come and reflect on what skills you have learned.

Another part of the self-evaluation process can be to identify significant events, interactions, and other “lessons” you experienced or learned at the agency. These types of phenomena are “teachable” (or, more appropriately, “learnable”) moments. Often, they are the times you discover some things of real value, such as a skill, a way of speaking or presenting yourself, or even clues that foreshadow something that is likely to occur.

Endings are also a good time for reflection. Understanding how you respond to separation will help you deal with the inevitable conclusion of the internship. The most important thing is to deal with this part of the transition with a reasonable degree of tact, honesty, and optimism, as these characteristics may make the transition easier for all parties. Of course, people tend to handle emotions in their own ways. Some individuals may have a harder time leaving the internship site because of the bonds they have formed while working there.

A positive way to view these feelings is to remember that you could be moving on to bigger and better things. There are other bonds to be made and more clients that need assistance from human services professionals. Recognizing your feelings allows you to be aware of your compassion as you work in that specialized field. A good self-assessment can help you discover your clinical interests, which can facilitate your professional development.

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

An often overlooked part of self-reflection is listening to feedback from others. When I ask students how they can elicit feedback from clients or colleagues, they will respond with, “Ask them!” The truth is, you are probably already getting feedback if you just pay attention and listen. As we discussed in Chapter 8, seeking and reflecting on feedback is an important part of your professional growth.

Self-reflection can give you a pause to think about the feedback you have received over your time at the agency. Of course, not every piece of feedback is of equal importance. Some clients will like us better than others, and you may have a closer relationship with some colleagues than others. What you are listening for is consistent feedback that you might be getting from multiple sources.

A good question to ask yourself is, “Is this feedback that I have heard from others before?” One of my former colleagues described it more eloquently as, “If one person calls you a jackass, ignore them. If three different people call you a jackass, get a saddle.” People are probably giving you information you can learn from if you tune in and listen. This requires both slowing down our response to feedback and being more open to criticism. Reflecting on the feedback can give us new insights that will help us in the future.

It is important to think of feedback and performance as a continuous loop of improvement. Each bit of feedback you receive over your internship (and career) gives you a chance to improve your skills. The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (seen in Figure 9.2) shows how each cycle of learning can improve upon the last. For more information, check out the American Society for Quality website.

Self-Evaluation Licenses and Attributions

“Self-evaluation” is adapted from “Succeeding at Your Internship: A Handbook Written for and with Students” by Christopher J. Mruk, and John C. Moor, Bowling Green State University Libraries. This work is licensed under CC BY NC SA 4.0.

“You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know” Written by Yvonne M. Smith LCSW under CC BY 4.0

Figure 9.1. “A South Asian person in a wheelchair looks thoughtfully to the side while taking notes. She is backlit by the window she’s in front of and wearing a teal shirt with black pants and shoes.” by Chona Kasinger from the Disabled and Here project is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Figure 9.2 “PDCA Cycle” by Karn Bulsuk from Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC BY 3.0.