Summer 2021

In just a couple of days, I'll be starting my junior year of college... It's so crazy how fast time flies! I still feel like a freshman. Well, kind of. I know where everything is on campus (thank God no more getting lost), but the whole in-person college thing feels brand new to me again. It's crazy that some of us haven't had in-person classes for a year and a half. Soon, the professors, students, faculty, and staff will all be together, not just floating heads on a computer screen. It will be great!
Anyways, this summer was filled with lots of growth, joy, learning, and passion. For the majority of the summer, I interned for Special Olympics International (SOI), where I spent much of my time working on projects that lit my heart on fire and interacting with people who inspire me immensely. My internship with SOI started in January and kicked off with researching and learning more about accessibility and easy read language. Within the first few months, my insight on accessibility grew rapidly, and my passion for disability advocacy grew even stronger. Accessibility is so important for spearheading a movement and engaging a larger audience. The latter part of my internship entailed creating resources for SO Programs around the world and collaborating with others on a newsletter and website. I'm incredibly grateful for this internship and will forever be a part of the Special Olympics family! 
The last few weeks of summer, I was a teaching assistant (TA) for Intensive Freshman Seminar at IU. It's a three-week program freshmen can take to earn three credits and get acclimated to campus quickly. The course I was a TA for was titled "Financing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals" and was taught by one of my favorite professors! The class was great, and it was so much fun introducing the freshman to IU and Bloomington. It was also insightful to learn more about the SDGs, international development, and blended finance. I can't wait to start this semester's courses and delve deeper into topics that interest me!