Gabrielle Cayo, COL ’27, Brooklyn, NY
After my freshman year at Penn and plenty of amazing courses, especially in the Urban Studies department, I hoped to spend my summer figuring out what career path I wanted to follow post-Penn. I wasn’t necessarily confident on whether or not I want to go to law school, if I wanted to pursue government and policy work, or if I wanted to go the non-profit route.
I’ve known since I was a child that I wanted to truly impact the world and the communities that matter to me through my career. I spent high school organizing and interning for politicians, working with the NYC Department of Education to equalize student funding within public schools, and I worked with nonprofits dedicated to providing formerly incarcerated individuals with professional and personal support. This summer, I worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on employment discrimination cases and at the non-profit Books Through Bars (BTB), sending literature to incarcerated individuals.
I adored my experience working with both organizations and sets of individuals. At the EEOC, I spent my time intaking discrimination cases, and oftentimes I was the first person to genuinely listen and care about their experiences regarding discrimination and harassment. Outside of intakes, I wrote charges of discrimination and investigative memorandums, worked with attorneys to process their clients’ cases, and recommended case closures or continuations. The individuals I worked with were amazing– everyone was extremely passionate about their work, and my intern class were inspiring, humorous, and future world changers. Having the privilege of working with and speaking to such dedicated and passionate individuals over staff pizza parties and lunch break walks was the highlight of my summer.
At Books Through Bars, I spent my time picking, packaging, and invoicing book packages for incarcerated individuals, processing and organizing book donations, training volunteers, and working on a project to gain the experiences of incarcerated individuals, both broadly with literature and more specifically with our program. While working with BTB, I became fully acclimated to our library system, super cool volunteers and staff, and “Gay Chaos” bathroom graffiti– so much so that I plan on continuing to work there through the year.
When I got to Penn, I knew the general direction I wanted my life and career to head, but after this summer, I’m more sure than ever. After working with lawyers at the EEOC, I know that I want to go to law school after I graduate (and possibly complete a masters?) I also spent a lot of my summer talking about international politics and law with my coworkers, not only fueling my interest in international politics and relations, but also pushing me towards considering a double major. I’m beyond grateful for my experiences this summer and at Penn, and I can’t wait to see where next summer takes me.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 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
