This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2021 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here.
This entry is by Jillian A. Baker, COL ’23
My name is Jillian Baker and I am a third year student in the College of Arts & Sciences at Penn. I am studying Political Science and exploring my options for a minor. This summer I was extremely fortunate to receive summer funding from career services. This experience has been like no other in my entire life. This summer, I accepted a position as a Professional Development Associate at the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. I have gained an incredible amount of knowledge surrounding the development of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training. Specifically, I developed three new workshops to add to our library for Penn student organizations to select from.
I also facilitated two virtual trainings for our new hires, with topics surrounding oppression, power, and how our identities shape our work experiences in West Philadelphia. During this time I also discussed with my coworkers how we can improve the professional development committee at Netter, which led to a hiring process and us bringing on three more people. This taught me a lot about the other side of the interview process, how to find reliable qualities for an employee, and other transferable skills. Moreover, I was able to teach them how to research and develop their own workshops. I am very excited to continue this work over the next school year, during which we will continue to expand our library of available resources and workshops for Penn’s campus.
This resource would not exist without Career Services. Netter also provided me with another opportunity to head the virtual summer camp program for grades 3-6. In this position I created several lesson plans to nurture literacy skills, as well as scientific thinking. Not only that, but I had the opportunity to mentor three high school students through their internship at Netter, answering any questions that they had while teaching them valuable skills regarding working with children. This built the skill of commitment and passion for mission-driven work, but it also fostered my self-motivation and authenticity. Working over the summer at Netter greatly helped my professional goals because it allowed me to collaborate with diverse groups of people, and build my leadership skills independently. I am so eternally grateful for career services for providing me with one thousand dollars so that I could pay my rent and eat over the summer while doing this work. Every day I give gratitude to this organization for helping me during a time of need. This position jump started my career working in the nonprofit industry, and this opportunity for funding granted me the time to dedicate my efforts to this internship. I am incredibly grateful for this funding since I am the first in my family to attend college, and because I could afford food for my family. These were uncertain times and career services were the stability that made me feel safe.
