Category: Uncategorized

My time at Good Grief has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. Everyone I work with is so kind and devoted to the organization; it is incredible to see what goes on behind the scenes to keep this program thriving. As an intern, whether I am researching contacts to help expand to other communities, or making crafts for Family Fun Day, I can see that my work impacts so many families. Aside from assisting behind the scenes, I also worked with families on Good Grief’s nights of support. It was amazing to talk with the families and hear their stories. If I could sum it up, the most rewarding part for me is that the work I put in every day could potentially help change someone’s life. The most challenging part of my internship was being a facilitator on nights of support. On most nights the kids wanted to play and have fun, rather than just talking about their grief. But at other times the kids had some emotional conversations about the death of their loved one. It was challenging to hear the children talk about the death of a parent or sibling without becoming emotional myself. It was incredible to hear what they had to share with the group, and to see how other children in the group responded. Despite this challenge, I enjoyed every moment I could spend with the families, and I gained clinical experience and knowledge along the way!

Marissa DeStefano
Psychology

Upon reflecting on my time during my summer internship as a molecular biology research assistant at the University of Scranton, I am filled with a sense of gratitude and confidence. I am so grateful for the opportunity to grow not only as researcher but also as a professional.  I had to overcome many challenges in the lab protocols that I had to perform. Reactions and lab procedures were unsuccessful and often resulted in poor data. When this happened I went back to the original protocol and did some trouble shooting.  With patience, knowledge and some luck, I was able to modify a protocol used by other researchers in order to identify plasmodium parasites in avian blood. Solving the issues I was having with the protocol was like overcoming a large obstacle. It is great to have hurtled over that obstacle and carry out the project to completion. I also felt more confidence in my lab techniques and abilities in experimental design. This summer internship has inspired me to further continue this project and hopefully develop a research project of my own.

This summer has been full of learning and new experiences. I can’t believe how hands-on experience makes everything learned in the classroom come to life! The most rewarding part of my internship is watching my patients achieve their goals. Many of them come into the rehab center at a much more dependent level then their prior level of function. It is amazing to see my patients making gains everyday and knowing that I am part of the reason they get to return home safely with their family. I also love to be able to form connections with them and get to be apart of their everyday life while they’re in rehab. It is definitely a challenge when there are certain patients that don’t have the opportunity to make a complete recovery; Whether that be a person who has had a stroke and now has an inability to talk or a patient with aggressively progressing MS. Its hard to know that no matter how creative an intervention I design to uniquely benefit that person, that they will never get to be as independent as they were before the diagnosis. The story that really sticks with me the most is of one MS patient, John. John was bed bound due to his disease and was only in his mid-fifties. John’s wife was taking care of him at home until she became terminally ill with cancer. She died a few months after being diagnosed; leaving behind their special needs 30-year-old daughter that John was unable to care for by himself. The first time I met him my heart broke for his situation. I am sure this never how he envisioned his life would go. It inspires me everyday that despite the challenges life has thrown at him he is still able to go on with life and find the positive side of situations.

Katie Leithauser
Occupational Therapy

There were so many amazing aspects of my internship that it is truly difficult to pick just one of them as the most rewarding. After some thought, though, I would say that my favorite part was being able to interact with so many clients and learning their stories and struggles. When I had first decided to become a lawyer, a lot of my family and friends were concerned, worrying that I would eventually grow tired of such a “boring” and stressful job. While these comments did not deter me, this summer has given me the confidence to shut down these misconceptions about this line of work. I won’t lie and say that this summer wasn’t stressful or challenging because it definitely was! For the first time in my life, I was in an office situation working with a very busy and focused lawyer who didn’t always have the time to let me know what she needed from me. For me, this was very challenging because I didn’t have the experience to know how to assist her without guidance and so there was a bit of an awkward adjustment period while I tried to become more accustomed to the law office’s needs and the constructive criticism I received from my colleagues. While it was incredibly challenging, the takeaway was definitely worth it. I read several hundreds of case files during my internship and every single one was unique: each document and photo inside was its own special piece that only fit into that person’s puzzle. I really feel lucky to have had this experience; I learned that the best feeling in the world is to see relief wash over a client’s face as they learn that they are no longer going to be deported or that they have been approved for asylum or a green card. I can’t wait to devote the rest of my life to helping immigrants and this internship has only helped me to fully realize that this is what I am meant to do with my life.

Kylie Mignat
International Studies

The most rewarding part of my internship at the Friendship House was definitely the children. Working with them, creating those relationships was an incredible journey that I will take with me through my future career. Watching some of the kids seriously progress, grow, and mature through the work of the Friendship House was inspiring and wonderful. I was truly blessed to be a part of the team at the Friendship House who could help those kids get the help they needed. My internship was extremely rewarding because it taught me the importance of compassion and understanding. Working with kids who have been traumatized is difficult to say the least. However, it was rewarding to develop the skills necessary to work with such a group of bright young children.

Working at the Friendship House had its challenges as well. As wonderful as the children were, working with the parents or family members was usually stressful. Sometimes parents get overwhelmed and stressed and then take it out on the staff members at the Friendship House. Occasionally parents can be stubborn or aggressive. It’s very hard trying to schedule a child to see a psychiatrist when the parent is furious about something and is yelling and being stubborn. Although not all parents were hard to work with, most parents could be challenging to say the least. However, I worked hard to overcome this challenge and be patient with parents who were being difficult. I kept an open mind and understood that those parents definitely had a lot on their plate. Through everything, the Friendship House taught me a lot about compassion, patience, and understanding, providing me with an incredible experience, one I would do again in a heartbeat.

First off I would like to say that I had the best Internship ever this summer, and it’s all thanks to The Royal Experience Internship Program! There were so many rewarding parts of my internship that it’s hard to narrow it down to one, but if I had to choose I would say the most rewarding part about interning at WHHI-TV was the opportunity’s I was given while there. I was able to do a live stand up report, guest host on their TV shows, contribute to their social media pages, and be able to stand in and help out with so many of there programs. Interning at WHHI-TV truly made me feel as though this was absolutely the career path that I wish to continue on, and I feel as though my time at The University of Scranton has prepared me greatly for my future career aspirations. The greatest challenge I found while interning at WHHI-TV was actually the amount of responsibility I was given. My first few days while at this internship I definitely was second guessing myself a lot, and didn’t want to mess up. I found it challenging to trust that I was doing the right thing, but by the end of the experience I felt so confident in myself. For example one of my first days I was at a video shoot and they had me focusing the camera, I was so nervous that I was going to mess it up and the whole video would turn out blurry, but by the end of the summer I could focus a camera quickly and with no problem! Overall I’m so happy with how my internship turned out, and I feel as though I truly gained real world experience.

Philadelphia Major Jim Kenney recently congratulated all students, including our very own Chris Louin, who completed the Mayor’s Internship Program. Check out the clip here.

The first thing I had noticed when I stepped into the Democratic National Committee was that it never sleeps. As I overheard someone say while waiting for orientation to start, “…There’s only 62 days until the convention,” and over the past four weeks, it’s been so exciting to play even a small part in getting ready for the convention and general election.

This summer, I’m working at the DNC’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.  as an intern in the research department. My fellow interns and I assist the research staffers, so we have been involved in several long-term projects. Our usual duties include transcription, data entry, some archival work, and sampling every food truck that parks near the Capitol South metro stop. We have had the opportunity to attend some events as well.

I knew political research was essential for a campaign, but I did not know how in-depth the research was until I became a part of it. Whenever I saw an article or political ad, I rarely thought about how exactly that information was gathered, but now I appreciate the fact that it might have taken a researcher or team hours of sifting through obscure material to find it. Also, the DNC’s research is mostly opposition research. As an individual, I believe getting to know the opposition is just as important as being well versed in your own side when deciding for whom to vote, even if it is an easy choice. As an organization, the DNC’s goal is clearly for their party’s candidate to be elected president, and opposition research is an important part of that process.

I think that this internship will influence my career path in several ways. Political research is so important, so whether I work for a non-profit, a political consulting firm, or a campaign (or, most likely, all three at different points in my career), it will likely involve research. Besides the work itself though, the DNC is just an incredible work environment. This intern class has only been here for four weeks, but already we have gotten immersed in projects, attended events and seen major political figures speak, worked closely with our supervisors, and learned about the other departments’ work through talks given by other senior staffers. The work itself has been interesting, but in this field in particular, it is so important to make connections and learn from others’ experiences. I certainly have plenty of opportunities to do that, and I can’t wait to see what the next two months will bring.

Megan Bershefsky
International Studies

I can’t believe I’m starting my 4th week at my internship. I feel as though I’ve already learned so much about occupational therapy. I’m getting to see first-hand how what we learned in the classroom relates in real life situations. During the remaining 8 weeks I hope to learn how to better create interventions that relate to the client as an individual. I noticed that a lot of the time therapists get overwhelmed with a “rush” of clients at one time and the individualism of treatment seems to be lost. I have my own caseload and have been trying to consciously create treatments to benefit them as well as incorporate something that they enjoy doing. For example, one of my patients came in extremely weak from a recent fall and surgery. This patient in particular enjoyed sketching and painting so I decided to incorporate sketching while working on his endurance and standing balance during the session. I’ve found that the more I am able to relate to a client the more cooperative they become in a session. I think this will be an important aspect of my future career because I feel that the best health care professionals are the ones that go out of their way to make you feel like you’re the most important patient they have at that moment. As the summer progresses I hope that I can keep coming up with creative interventions as ways to help my clients and grow as a therapist.

Katie Leithauser
Occupational Therapy