Working with the HIV-positive clients was the best aspect of the summer. It wasn t a sad situation. I worked with the children mostly, but the women were really upbeat, positive, and ambitious, and it rubbed off on me. The best part of my work was the opportunity to create an evaluation system of a set of interviews of young boys housed in a Baltimore correctional facility. The study attempted to look at the different adaptive strategies boys use to function in their environments.
Nonprofit organizations are severely underfunded.
In the museum, we had space limitations. There was one lab we were working with that did not have a sink. Too often, people struggle and make it, but then turn their backs on the members of the community. Working as a swimming instructor, educational aide, and tutor, along with talking to other Summer Links interns, I learned that there are a lot of people in this world who will never be mentioned as one of the Fortune 500 and will never know what it s like to earn a six-figure salary. But the people I came into contact with this summer convinced me that the kind of work they do is the kind of work I want to do too.