Explorers Virtual Internship: Fostering Rightful Presence and Sense of Belonging in an Online High School Internship Program.

ABSTRACT: This paper describes the "Explorers Virtual Internship" (EVI), which was designed and presented in the 2020-21 school year by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Despite our initial wariness about creating a virtual internship, the shift helped us make valuable innovations to our programming. EVI paired 11 high school interns with mentors to work on individual research projects. We designed our program to foster a sense of belonging and "rightful presence" in biomedical research among the interns, all of whom came from backgrounds underrepresented in science. In addition to the research experience, we also focused on ethical issues, career awareness, community building, identity/belonging, and leadership/agency. Interns reported increases in their perceptions of the overlap of thei

SUBMITTER: Lalish KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8415770 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature