Professional Portfolio

* EXPERIENCE *

In high school, I joined several clubs that required me to do some volunteer work. On numerous occasions, I volunteered at the Community House where I worked as the dishwasher or a server. The Community House became a place that I loved so much and it taught me that being a server was not an easy job as you need to be attentive and very patient.

I often tutored kids ranging from grade school to high school. Kids would stay after school for extra help or just to work on homework. I didn't just help them with school work, I bonded with the students. Many looked up to me as a role model; I had never seen myself as a role model to anyone, but I wouldn't disappoint anyone who saw me that way. 

During my undergraduate program, I have been given lots of opportunities in expanding my experiences. In my freshman year, I worked for the ASU Child Development Center as a caregiver, where I dealt with children as young as 4 months to 4 years old. However, because of my conflicting class schedule, I was moved to the Lucy Brock Child Development Laboratory Program my sophomore year. There, I worked as a kitchen assisstant. Though I seldom worked with the children, I learned about various health issues and nutritional needs. 

One of the most rewarding experiences, however, is getting to work with a special needs child during my PSY field experience. This was an after school program where we go out into the field to tutor students as well as conduct one lesson plan with them. The particular program I was in happened to take place on the ASU campus; it was called Kaleidoscope. In the program, we are assigned one student to focus on and work with. The student I worked with was a 3rd grader. At the age of 8, he had already been through so much. He was an underprivileged and stressed child who also had speech impairment. I'll admit he was not an easy child to deal with. He refused to do homework or participate in any of the activities. It took some time, but we bonded over conversations about trucks, legos, and Transformers. He told me he wanted to grow up to work in the Marines as a pilot. I encouraged him by letting him know that to become a pilot, you would need to know how to read the different functions and know math to figure out different equations. I had convinced him--he worked hard every day to finish his work and he even participated with the rest of the students.

As I entered my third year at ASU, I was required to do an internship for my Block 1. This is where we are placed in different elementary schools over a 12-day period. We are to go to the schools from 7:30am - 3pm everyday to observe the classroom, students, and our teacher's teaching methods. My placement was at Sunshine Trails Elementary School where I assisted a class of 5th graders. Since it is only the first stage of experience, we did not do much. I helped my cooperating teacher by grading papers and walking around the room to help the students if they had questions. Although I did not do much, it was a great experience because I learned so much about dealing with children. There were also relationships built, as these children had impacted me.