As my practicum experience is gradually coming to a close, I can’t help but reflect on my experience so far, looking back at where I started from and the growth I have experienced. After a few mishaps regarding my approach to make sense of the data I was tasked with analyzing, I found myself thinking back to my boy scout days when our instructor would always remind us to “begin with the end in mind”.
I have learnt a great deal from this experience, including the importance of planning, understanding the goals of the work that needs to be done, and fashioning an approach that adequately answers the questions that need answering before starting to work. I have also learned what goes into planning and execution of a study, and important considerations to be made in planning and implementing public health work. Most importantly, I learned a lot about myself and how necessity forces growth.
Despite being a mostly remote experience, I was fortunate to have an accessible preceptor that provided guidance and resource persons that could help at different stages of the work we were doing, making my experience much less difficult than it could have been. I am also glad to have met other members of the organization I worked for and made some friends along the way, many of whom have contributed in some way to my experience so far. Having bagged these additional skills, I look forward to applying them in future public health work and in other spheres of my life.
– Kofi