Reflective Journal: Internship Incident and Ethical Dilemma Analysis

This journal entry presents a reflective analysis of a critical incident encountered during an engineering internship. The student details an experience involving a supervisor's perceived bias towards a female intern, leading to an ethical dilemma for the student. The student grapples with the conflict between personal loyalty and professional ethics when the female intern seeks support in filing a complaint. The reflection incorporates Ullmann's levels of reflection, examining feelings, beliefs, and lessons learned. The student ultimately prioritizes professional ethics, explaining the decision and its implications. The journal entry highlights the importance of ethical conduct and workplace dynamics in an engineering context, demonstrating reflective learning and application of theoretical frameworks.

Journal: 2
Reflection on a critical incident:
The incident took place during my internship placement at an Engineering firm. This happened
to be one of my first professional exposures and therefore I was extremely nervous. At the same
firm, there was a girl named ‘J’ (confidential) who had also joined as an intern and was pursuing
a degree in Engineering Major from a different college. Both of us were placed under the
supervisor and mentor ‘T’ who was a 42 year, man, placed at a senior designation.
Initially, the mentor appeared to be friendly and during the send week of internship handed over
multiple tasks to me and J. At the end of the week, we were both expected to present our reports
and while ‘T’ had been patient throughout my presentation, he seemed to be extremely least
interested in the presentation that ‘J’ had prepared. He asked her to skip many slides and just
explain in brief her report. Initially it appeared strange but I thought it might be because of time-
constraints that he asked ‘J’ to rush through her slides. However, over the course of week, ‘T’
would mostly focus on my work and would not seem interested in mentoring ‘J’.
It gradually dawned on ‘J’ that ‘T’ was not considerate or tolerant towards female employees. ‘J’
got in touch with few of the female employees working at the firm to seek feedback about ‘T’
and his management style. It appeared that ‘J’ was right and so she confided in me and asked me
to accompany her whilst registering a complaint to the HR.
It was at this moment that I experienced both an ethical and a professional dilemma. While my
mind wanted to accompany her, but my professional ethics stopped me from doing so as it was
her personal matter. Morally, I felt that saying ‘no’ to her was equivalent to betraying the bond I
had developed with her. However, I stuck to my sense of professional ethics and politely

explained her that I could not accompany her to the HR as that would be against the professional
code of ethics; coherent with the deeper think level stated by Ullman in his reflective research
(Ullman, 2017). She seemed disheartened but I believe I was able to righteously conquer the
moral dilemma.

References:
Ullmann, T. D. (2017, March). Reflective writing analytics: empirically determined keywords of
written reflection. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Learning Analytics & Knowledge
Conference (pp. 163-167).