This past summer, I had the opportunity to intern with UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA. My internship was within the HR Department, and I was specifically assigned to the HR Health Services Operations Division. Throughout the ten weeks, my main job was to create a Coffee Chat presentation from the ground up for HR Directors and Managers for all 40 of the hospitals at UPMC. I also complied reports for HR managers, shadowed HR departments at different hospitals, and advanced my skills in MS Excel, Word, and PowerBI.  

While completing my STEP Project, my understanding of Human Resources changed drastically. Most people when they hear HR think about employee drama that needs to be resolved, and I honestly thought that at first too, when coming into this internship. However, that opinion of mine quickly changed as I began my position with UPMC. I started to learn about all the different sectors of HR. For example, there is compensation, payroll, benefits, HRIS, employee relations, recruitment, talent management, learning and development, project management, data analysis, and many other divisions. I quickly realized that there was way more to HR than most people realize. This relieved my concerns because I did not want to solely focus on employee drama. The other nice thing was that at UPMC there are individual HR teams at all of the hospitals then there was an HR team at the corporate office that dealt with more project work and data analysis. I was assigned to the corporate office division. I was grateful that I was on this team because it introduced my interest in project work.  

I solely worked in the corporate office on the HR Health Services HR Team. My team was responsible for supporting the HR teams at the hospitals operationally. The HR teams at the hospitals are very busy supporting the leaders and employees that provide direct and indirect patient care, and we strived to make their jobs and work as smooth as we can, through various HR initiatives and projects. I was glad that I was assigned to this team because it allowed me to see a whole other side of Human Resources that I did not know existed.  

Another major assumption of mine that changed after completing my internship was that you must do one specific job with the major you have. Before my internship, I felt very lost on what I wanted to do with my career. In all of my psychology classes, everyone said they wanted to become a clinical psychologist. I said I wanted to do the same thing; however, I was not really interested in going to graduate school. I was also concerned if my psychology major would be beneficial or useful in this job field. After talking with various different employees in the HR department, I learned that the major you study in college is not the end all be all. Some people obviously studied Human Resources and planned on going into this field but not everyone wanted to. As I worked with various teams, I also was able to see how psychology was tied into some aspects of HR. For example, learning on how to manage employee interactions, gain a deeper understanding of prospective candidates, and improve employee well-being were just a few ways where I saw psychology tie in.  

Most people that I shadowed and met with at UPMC said that they started in a completely different field than what job they are in now. For example, my manager majored in journalism and is now a Senior HR Project Analyst. This was the case with the majority of people that I talked to. When I went to shadow the individual HR teams at the hospitals, they told me that they were able explore the different divisions of HR and jump around until they found one that they enjoyed the most.  

I am grateful to have completed this STEP Project and have had the opportunity to change my assumptions about Human Resources and what to do with your career. Learning about the different aspects of Human Resources has helped me discover that I would be interested in going into an HR role full-time after graduation. Since there are more divisions of HR other than employee relations, it has been more appealing for me to obtain an HR project management role post-graduation. I also realized that if I were to go into HR, that it would be in Health Services HR. Working at UPMC made me realize that I enjoy being in a clinical environment and that I still could still work corporately. Learning what to do with your major is always stressful, however this internship allowed me to get a better picture of all the possibilities there are.  

Pictured above is myself at the corporate office on my last day of my internship. The picture on the right is of me and another intern at the Ronald McDonald Charity House at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA.