Spring 2022 Internship: Boys and Girls Clubs of Southern Nevada

For this spring semester, I had the wonderful opportunity of volunteering as a youth development professional at one of the Boys and Girls Clubs in Southern Nevada. I worked with kids from ages 6 to 12 and helped run a variety of different youth programs such as art, science, physical education, and homework programs. One of the most important things that I have learned from this internship has been about understanding the various backgrounds that kids come from. A lot of the kids I worked with came from poorer backgrounds and did not have a lot of the privileges that a lot of us take for granted. I have been open and non-judgmental when learning about the different circumstances that these kids came from, and I have always made sure that the kids' feelings were not invalidated for any reasons.

This experience will be very beneficial for if I pursue a career as a school psychologist. This is because school psychologists study how kids behave, interact, work, etc. in school-like settings. This experience has also been very beneficial for my major in psychology. One of the classes I took this semester was about childhood development, and I was able to apply the knowledge that I have learned in that class to the Boys and Girls Club. I am still conflicted on if I want to pursue a career as a school psychologist because of the fact that this experience has been stressful and tiring at times, but if I do decide to take this career path, I will need to gain experience working at an actual school as well as from shadowing psychology professionals. Overall, I am glad that I have done this internship opportunity, and I will be applying the skills that I have learned from this experience to future ones as well.