Write a journal-style reflection connecting what you’re learning in your internship or our reading to your academic experiences. For example, are you seeing real-world examples of concepts from your poverty studies courses? Are you seeing a different dynamic from the one you expected based on your sociology class? Maybe you see a connection between a novel or poem you studied and the experiences of the people your organization serves. Explain the connections you see, using specific examples from your internship. Is this experience prompting you to study a certain topic or take certain classes in the future? Post your reflection on the forum below.
Then, read and comment on at least two other posts. What do you find interesting? What do you have in common? What questions do you have?
My internship with Community Care Development Network so far has taught me that there are many more people in poverty than we might think. When looking at the database with all the client files, it was overwhelming because there are so many people that have started/finished applications to receive assistance in the areas of food, life services or even financial assistance. I knew that there were many people who needed resources, but seeing the actual names of people just changed it all. It has made it into something real, even though I had prior knowledge that poorer communities lack the resources they need from taking intro to poverty studies. In intro to poverty studies we analyze how poverty affects people and I am able to see that now with the clients I am given. Having this background on poverty has helped me to understand the position that these people are in and just drives me to keep helping connect them to the resources they need.
From class readings I know that change is difficult, but these words make me want to connect it to the pandemic. I did this because over the course of this past year change has been the central theme for us all and it in fact has been difficult to manage it all. I can't imagine what people have gone through especially communities with a large minority presence. This has led me to want to focus more on the experience of minority families as an area of interest because most of the clients I am working with are minorities that live in the Birmingham area. This is something I want to keep looking at for sure because they are impacted so differently compared to other groups.