This quarter, I interned for Special Olympics Washington! I spent ten hours a week at their downtown Seattle office, recruiting volunteers for the SOWA Spring State Games. This internship provided me with community outreach and online management skills. I fell in love with the organization and I hope to stay involved for years to come.
In my graduate seminar on Relational Poverty Politics, the final assignment was to write a paper about keywords in poverty politics. In the essay above, I analyze 3 keywords from various "Relational Poverty Network" interviews with people who are involved in the field. Honestly, being in this class was an incredible experience. It was so different from all my other freshman level classes, where the professor doesn't even know your name. This class only had 12 people, and it was amazing. I spent lots of time with my classmates and really got to know each of their unique stories and backgrounds. Most of them were graduate students, which made me feel simultaneously small yet honored. They're all so intelligent, and they showed me how to see the world from many different lenses.
This is by far one of the best pictures I have. In it is all 4 of us undergraduate students, and the two professors, Vicky Lawson and Sarah Elwood. I was blessed to have this experience. All of the women pictured above are strong, brilliant, and have a deep understanding and passion for the world around them. I felt at home when I was in this class with them, and I treasured the opportunity. The document above shows my final presentation for the class. I made an analogy between trees and poverty politics, basically stating that in order to understand poverty, you cannot focus on a single tree. You must see the forest. You have to visualize the larger structural issues at hand, and take the blame off the individuals.
This is... UPLIFT! As a part of UW Leaders, I partnered with Hunter Francia and created this campaign. We asked people to take a pledge for 2 weeks, and each day complete a positivity challenge. Our challenges were things like "call a loved one" or "eat 3 full meals" or "leave sticky note compliments around throughout your day", etc. The goal of the project was to increase long term positive habits, like self-care and checking up on the ones around you. We conducted initial surveys to find out how 'positive' people thought they were on a daily basis, and then after the campaign to see how it had changed. People's rated positivity increased significantly afterwards! I don't know for sure if they kept doing those challenges, but I know that I did. Uplift made a big difference in my life in terms of loving others and making sure to love myself. I consider this a big part of my learning, despite it not being directly in my education. In the project, I developed design skills, communication skills, and leadership skills that I'll carry on forever.
I presented in the Undergraduate Research Symposium! The research was conducted by Mariah Corey, a graduate student in the lab (Center for the Science of Social Connection). She was testing to see if rates of depression and anxiety would vary with ethnic identity. In black participants, those who rated themselves has having a stronger ethnic identity tended to have higher rates of depression and anxiety, whereas those who rated themselves lower had lower rates. This research is different from previous research done on this subject, which could indicate a spike in perceived discrimination. I loved being a part of this project. I presented the research with 2 other students. We had to put together the poster and a presentation, which reinforced the data analysis into my memory for good.