I have always liked spending time with kids. Ever since I was two years old, I've been surrounded by my younger brothers and cousins. Beyond my family, my experience working with kids started in middle school when I began to volunteer at summer camps and continued in high school with the addition of babysitting. Being around children has always felt natural and fun for me.
During my first semester at Tufts, I applied to be a tutor at the Tufts Literacy Corps as a work study job. In that year, I worked for an after-school program in a school in Medford, helping students in second and third grade with math. Throughout my first year, several people suggested to me that I become involved in STOMP, a program run by the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) in which undergraduates teach engineering topics through hands-on projects to students in elementary school. I applied at the beginning of my sophomore year because I was interested in the prospect of teaching, and I wanted to challenge myself with a role that allowed more creative authority. I've continued working for STOMP ever since. Teaching is fun for me, and I think it's an effective way that I can benefit children.
Later in my sophomore year, I went to the Tufts Career Fair in the spring to look for summer internships. I found Camp Starfish, an organization for kids with special needs. Although I was apprehensive about the experience because I had never worked with kids with specific challenges before, I decided to work at camp that summer because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. My time at camp was far better than I had anticipated. I loved working with kids with special needs, and afterwards I wanted to find more opportunities to do so.
Returning to Tufts for my junior year, I wanted to find a new form of involvement. For my major in child study and human development, I was required to do a part-time internship for a semester. I thought this fieldwork opportunity would be a great chance to advance my skills in working with special needs. In the fall, I met a friend of one of my camp friends, and she told me that she was a special education teacher in Somerville at a school just a 10-minute bike ride away from Tufts and that her program was looking for an intern. She gave me the contact information of the coordinator of the program, and I secured my internship for the spring. That placement was a valuable learning experience for me, and I loved that I could combine my teaching skills from STOMP with my experience working with children with special needs at camp.
Now, as I'm moving into my final year at Tufts, I have been reaching out to different people to hear about their professional experiences to glean some insight about my options after graduation. My dad's girlfriend connected me to her friend and former coworker, who also happened to be a Tufts alumna, and she told me about her path in the field of social work. I never really knew what social work was, but after talking to her I was inspired by the different settings in which I could work and the ways in which I could support people. I feel much more confident and excited about my options now that I have had an array of experiences and have talked to professionals. My time at Tufts has helped me narrow my career interests, between my student jobs, the career fair, and my required internship. I'm excited to see what opportunities lie ahead of me and how my career will continue to develop.