Aspen Karns
KINE-P 443
Internal Internship
My internal internship at IU Indianapolis helped feed my interest for research. Every week, we would be assigned a different research paper to read and analyze. For class, we would discuss the paper, ask questions, and overall have a great discussion that would teach us about how research papers are written, how to approach research, what is or isn't ethical research, where to recognize possible research bias, and how to analyze data and figures. A significant moment from this class was when we conducted our own experiment based on a paper that claimed that finger length correlated to muscular strength. It was fun and informative to not only discuss it, but to also participate in it and see if our results matched the study.
KINE-P 393
External Internship
I am currently in my external internship class, and I am interning at Rock Steady Boxing. Rock Steady Boxing is a boxing gym for those with Parkinson's Disease. I wanted to intern at Rock Steady to get more experience with a neuro population after shadowing in many different settings. So far, the experience has been amazing. The boxers are nice and love to box and workout, the coaches have been super helpful in guiding me and teaching me in my preparation to become an assistant coach by the end of my internship, and the physical therapists working on site have been teaching me lifting techniques to support the boxers and how to modify and correct exercises. A significant moment from this internship so far has been a physical therapist correcting me on how to properly support someone getting out of a chair. I felt like I had learned a lot then and was able to prevent hurting the boxer's shoulder when supporting them to stand up.