I interned at CORE: Powered by the Roger’s Foundation over the Spring semester. CORE is a non-profit organization that provides both scholars and their families a long-term program that includes access to emotional, social and educational resources. This internship has benefitted my future career by allowing me to step foot in the educational world with Middle School and High School Students. Not only did I learn from the education system perspective but also from the scholar’s social and emotional state. My internship position allowed me to gain experience with families during intakes in order to gather information on the resources that may be needed. This experience benefited my career path because I am graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and plan to pursue a Master’s degree either in School Counseling or Family and Marriage and Family Therapy.
My internship does tie into my major of study because I was able to work with families and shadow check-ins with scholars on their emotional status, grades, and areas in which they may need assistance with. The Social-Emotional Champions worked closely with the scholars in order to focus on their mental health and security in the school environment. I had also previously considered going into Social work, which I also got to experience by providing resources for families in need of hygiene products, food, diapers, tutoring or even assistance in going back to school, and searching for job opportunities and new housing.
Some educational knowledge that I wish I would have known about would be a deeper dive of knowledge on students and the education system and learn more about the age group. I feel like when I first started at my internship site, I was a little uncertain when talking to students because I did not know if I sounded too much like a parent versus a teacher.
I would be interested in a career with this organization because I would be able to help students and families by providing them the correct resources. If I had a choice between being an academic advisor (who runs after-school programming with the scholars) versus being a Social Emotional Champion, I would be a Social Emotional Champion so that I could work closely with students and assist them with their mental health goals as well as educational goals. In order to gain a secure full-time position, I believe that depending on the position either one may need a Masters in order to secure a job.
A piece of advice that I would offer to incoming interns, would be to be prepared to learn about classroom management and to be prepared to attend a lot of events at different locations. Transportation is important and so is flexibility, there will be a lot of different events and activities everyday. The routine is very consistent, however the type of activities always vary.
The picture I included is from a workshop that was hosted for students and families and it demonstrated and talked about how to make resumes and prepare for a job interviews.
