PRACTICUM

For my Scholars practicum, I enrolled in CPSP359S: Advanced Practicum: Research; Discovery Research. This course allowed students to learn about the process of research and complete a research project of their own. I worked amongst my peers and with the professor to develop a refined research question and use academic literature to attempt to answer this question. I found my practicum when given a list of classes I could enroll in to complete my practicum by my program coordinator. For future Media Scholars, I would recommend that you talk to your program coordinators about your potential options and not be afraid to email potential practicum supervisors for more information about their course. They are happy to help!
In doing my practicum, I learned valuable skills that will stick with me for the rest of my academic and professional career. One of the most important skills I learned from completing my practicum is the process of research. After taking this course, I now know how to develop a comprehensive research question and use academic literature to aid in answering the question. This course has also helped me develop the skill of synthesizing key findings of academic literature into one body of work: the literature review. Attached is a literature review I completed while taking this course. This literature review displays my learned ability to distill findings on a technical subject and synthesize these findings comprehensively.
My practicum experience strengthened my public speaking ability. My practicum provided me the opportunity to present my research in front of my classmates. I plan to use this developed skill in my career moving forward when presenting valuable information to upper management at a future job. I plan to spend the rest of my time at the University of Maryland developing other skills that translate into my career. Developing coding skills in Python and navigating Unix software are proficiencies I plan to explore further. Post-graduation, I plan to use my abilities in information systems to improve the efficiencies of businesses with an outstanding focus on corporate social responsibility worldwide.