Practicum Experience

One of the final requirements of the Scholars program is to complete a practicum that provides a fulfilling experience, such as an internship or volunteering opportunity.

My Practicum

For my practicum experience, I took the course EDSP 220: Disability in Community: Access, Accommodation, and Adaptation. Typically a class is not acceptable to fulfill the practicum requirement, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain types of courses were approved as an alternative. EDSP 200 examines the concept of disability and the history of disability rights. In addition to the coursework, everyone is required to complete a service-learning or research project. For my service-learning component, I participated in the Maryland Mentor Corps (MMC). The MMC has many different sectors, and I was involved with the Maryland Family Literacy Program (MFLP), which connects local parents who are learning English as a second language with student mentors. As a mentor, I was responsible for participating in two 50-minute sessions every Thursday evening on Zoom. We were responsible for assessing our mentees' needs and providing them with material and guidance that benefited them. I would also discuss and debrief my experiences with my team leaders and fellow mentors every week.

Since the service-learning component was a requirement of EDSP 220, there were already many suggestions provided by the class to help us choose, MMC being one of them. However, if I had to advise a future Media Scholar on finding a good opportunity, I would say to keep an open mind. I was unsure if I wanted to mentor, but I decided I might as well take the dive since I never had an experience like this before. It ended up being a very fulfilling opportunity that I learned a lot from.

What I Learned

One of my biggest takeaways from mentoring was the ability to put yourself into someone else's shoes. It sounds very obvious, and I think I thought that I was fine at it before I started. But, when sessions would go much slower than I expected and my mentee was not making the progress I was expecting, I had to take a step back and realized that thinking from another's perspective is a very deliberate process, and I could not assume what my mentee knew already.

This particular experience ties into how I have grown to be more patient as a person. I had one specific mentoring session where my mentee seemed to really struggle with the material. I came out of that day feeling pretty discouraged in my abilities. I decided that next time I met with them, I would try harder to take things slow and break things down clearly, instead of jumping into practice too quickly. When I did that, the results were way better, and my mentee started nailing it, and I could hear in her voice that she was more confident that time. Pictured below is a snapshot I took that day to use as a reference for the rest of the session:

This was the first time I observed much more tangible growth, and I felt proud of both my mentee and myself. This particular instance I shared with my fellow mentors in debriefing sessions several times, and I think this is the best representation of how I grew from mentoring both at that moment and in general.

In addition to helping me develop as a person, I can definitely see this experience supplementing my life and career down the road as well. It is not hard to believe that there will come a time where I have to teach or guide somebody else through something, whether it is on the job or just to help a friend. Participating as a mentor gave me the skills of patience and clarity to be more prepared next time it happens.

Future Plans

For the rest of my time at UMD, I hope I can seek out more enlightening opportunities. COVID-19 has certainly taken a toll on my participation in extracurriculars, so in a sense I am glad that the Scholars program "forced" me to engage with something like this. This experience motivated me to be more proactive about my college life.

I wish I could be specific about what my post-graduation plans are, but as of right now I am hoping to work towards a career in the business and/or accounting field.