Alex is the graduate student worker for the Block Career Center and a second-year NICBC student. Read all about her experience this summer as an intern with Good Measures!
1. In just a few sentences, please tell us about your summer internship. How does it connect to your personal and professional interests?
I interned at Good Measures, a digital health company focused on improving health outcomes through personalized coaching. My role involved creating evidence-based nutrition content and analyzing client engagement data. This aligned well with my personal interest in nutrition and my professional goal of contributing to public health initiatives through evidence-based solutions and creative content. I was also able to build on my business skills by participating in client meetings and helping to prepare presentations, which deepened my understanding of how health services operate on a broader scale.
2. How did you land your internship?
I found the internship through networking and utilizing resources from the Block Career Center. I attended an Alumni Chat lunch session with someone who previously worked at Good Measures. After hearing about her experience with the company and learning more about what they do, I asked if she could make an introduction to any of her former coworkers. I scheduled a few calls with current team members and quickly solidified my place as their Nutrition Communications intern, even though there was no formal internship publicized.
3. What did you enjoy about your internship? What did you find challenging?
I enjoyed the variety of tasks, like writing nutrition articles and working on data analysis for client reports. I was able to touch a lot of different projects that the team at Good Measures is involved with. The challenges included navigating a fully remote working environment and adjusting to an internal restructure that occurred over the summer. The restructure required me to stay flexible, yet also allowed me to take on some additional responsibilities. There was an element of proposing work for myself which was challenging to develop as an intern. Overall, I enjoyed the flexibility and creativity that came with this internship, like thinking through which language to use and how to present recipes and other materials to specific populations.
4. What are the necessary soft and hard skills needed for this position?
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, are essential. Because we were in a remote setting, speaking up in meetings, sharing my opinion, and advocating for myself became very important. It’s easy to disengage in a Zoom room but I recognized that my ideas had value and were always appreciated. It took time for me to be comfortable working remotely; it wasn’t until the end of the summer that I really got the hang of it. On the technical side, basic data analysis, content creation, and research skills were necessary to thrive in this position. Research skills included: evaluating evidence-based articles, sifting through nutrition information, and creating reliable communications to be disseminated to the target audience. Additionally, some elementary excel skills were helpful when creating visualizations within data-analysis presentations. This is a technical skill I’d like to continue to work on myself.
5. If you could offer one piece of internship search advice to your peers, what would it be?
Don’t worry too much about finding your “perfect” internship. Be open to unexpected opportunities — they can lead to valuable learning experiences that inform your future job search and career goals. Start networking early and use all the resources available to you, especially the Block Career Center!
