In reflection of my internship experience with One on One, I honestly can’t decipher if I have grown more as a professional or a person. I heard about the training program from a professor at Penn State who spoke of its pivotal impact on her career and how she felt she wouldn’t have been successful down the line without her start here. I knew immediately that I had to seize the opportunity.
Life cannot be planned. As a senior at Penn State, I have changed my major and career interests multiple times and COVID is just another curve ball. When I started gaining interest in personal training I was intimidated by many aspects; would anyone take me seriously, how would I market myself, do I even have what it takes to be a personal trainer? In the matter of weeks, I have gone from self-doubt and a false narrative that I am not good enough to fully prepared and completely confident that I could lead anyone through a training session. The training program broke things down to the basics making the information manageable, then built each week on what we’ve learned. By the end, I have learned a plethora of information that I cannot believe could’ve been mastered in such little time. A strategic training program such as this one which prepares you so well for success I truly believe cannot be found anywhere else.
With COVID lockdowns, I had the golden opportunity to take a step back and reflect on my growth as a person and evaluate where I wanted to be. Personal training in general is something outside of my comfort zone, so I knew this experience would be impactful but I didn’t realize the degree to which it would be. I was pushed each day to get out of comfort zone and to challenged not to crawl back into it. The trainers at One on One are experts in their field largely due to the standard of excellence each team member is held to. Being held at this high standard from the first day was intimidating, but I felt the community at One on One always had my best interest in mind and supported me through the process. This experience forced me to learn to be stronger and persevere to meet those expectations. Overall, I have learned that personal training requires a lot more hard work than what meets the eye and that being successful requires much more than simply putting people through workouts. At the end of my experience, I am more confident than ever in myself which is shining through in every aspect of my life. I have certainly grown as both a professional and person and exceeded my own expectations of what I was capable of.