Our hope is that you stay in touch with your extern(s) well after the externship has ended. Many past hosts stay in touch with their externs as professional references, and/or as resources for job search questions, networking contacts, or simply as friends. Due to the home‐stay experience, externs can easily become “part of the family” and/or part of your “network.” The relationships hosts tend to build with their externs typically keep them in touch long after the actual externship experience ends.

Some hosts write their externs a general letter of recommendation that they can use for job or graduate school applications and/or act as professional references. This is extremely helpful as hosts can not only speak to their externs’ professional capabilities, but can also speak to their externs’ personal character.

We recommend talking to your extern about “what’s next” and to set some expectations about keeping in touch and how you are willing to help them down the road.

Once the externship has ended, we will follow up with you to discuss your experience. In order to get a good sense of how well students were prepared and how well we did in preparing you, we’ll ask questions such as:

• Overall, what went well? What didn’t?
• How well were students prepared...
• • for interacting with others in a work environment?
  • for being in a work environment in general (i.e. getting up in the morning, dressing
    to the right standards)?
  • to take advantage of the various opportunities they faced throughout the day?
  • for being interviewed and asking good questions to people they meet?
  • for living in someone else’s home?
• What can we do to prepare students and develop interpersonal skills?
• Did you develop a close relationship with your student?
• Would you host one again? How did this experience impact your desire to host one in the future?
• Are there any other alumni that you know who you think would be great for this program?