- Post 3: What new skills are you developing? Have you identified other skills to develop in the future?
As a closet introvert who has to act like an extrovert online, the skills in engagement and brainstorming with others are being developed every week with meetings. Being an intern at a science museum rather than an archival museum has had its challenges. Struggling to develop a valid project around sexual education has been the goal for this semester and at this time it has turned into a potential podcast around sexual education, sexual education history (USA history focus from me), and sexual health communication. My fellow intern is getting her degree in the form of science policy and science communication which has identified new skills for me to develop for a general audience.
Communication of complex biological concepts is a limited skill that I have on a day to day basis from a medical point of view but not in a creative format. It is important to develop better communication skills and educational skills for a larger audience using some of the information we learned for the digital certificate over the summer. Teaching through online media or conveying information whether through podcasts, social media, video can be boring if strictly factual and scientific. The audience engagement required for health education like interactive parts of the body at The Health Museum or a controversial topic, like sexual health and sexual education requires a fine line between communication skills, education, and entertaining material to improve retention and learning.
The new skills I am developing at this juncture of my internship are soft skills in teamwork and collaboration for project ideas that my remote location from the museum has somewhat limited. Digital fluency has been a goal for the Health Museum, and that skill is a large and broad one for myself in regards to social media outreach, website building, and graphic design that I do not have the skills nor computer science skillset to perform. The skills to learn how to do graphic design, website building, or coding have not been my educational focus, but developing some fluency in each is a goal. My Master’s degree pursuit and current education have been strictly researching and writing history. This is why we (myself and my mentor) have switched gears to a podcast format on sexual education instead, alongside a fellow intern with a science educational background. The hope is to further develop website content and communication skills for a general online audience that helps educate and entertain creatively.
