Code in the Schools, Baltimore, MD
Working as a program assistant and site manager at Code in the Schools this summer taught me a lot about what I would like to do in my future career. I was assigned a wide range of tasks, such as supervising children, coordinating registration, and writing an evaluative report of the summer camp I helped to run. My responsibilities were divided into preparing for the CodeSteps summer camp, managing at one of the camp locations, and finally, on camp evaluations. Due to my exposure to this wide range of responsibilities I have concluded that working to promote equity is definitely something I could see myself doing as a career, though working directly with children is something I do not believe I will pursue.
For the first two weeks at Code in the Schools I worked as a Program Assistant at their headquarters. I had a wide range of tasks, but my two primary projects were coordinating registration and helping to organize the curriculum. I enjoyed these administrative tasks and found them to be one of my favorite parts of the job. I especially enjoyed coordinating registration, as I would routinely have to speak to parents and an administrator at Baltimore City Schools to ensure students could attend the camp. This is where I felt the chance to make a true impact, as I know that finding summer activities for underprivileged youth is very important. Moreover, learning about how non-profits cooperate with the city government by working as contractors was very interesting and I was surprised to learn how dependent the city was on Code in the Schools for technology teachers.
Over the course of the summer, I also learned a lot about how inefficient public funding for programs like this can be. For example, our program called CodeSteps was only allowed to accept students from Title One Schoolwide Schools or students who were designated as targeted assistance. Without assistance from the Title One, coordinators at City Schools we were not able to fill all the spots we had available at the camp. Unfortunately, this meant that we had open spots at the camp but still had to reject some students because they were not eligible.
The more challenging part of the job was working at a CodeSteps summer camp as a site manager. I was the point of contact for Code in the Schools and coordinated breakfast, lunch, and free time activities; communicated with parents; help with the supervision of Youthworkers (high school students employed by the city to act as counselors at our camp), and dealt with unforeseen problems—though very stressful, it was my favorite part of the job. For example, when the host school gave us very little notice that it would be closing down for pest extermination, I was able to coordinate a new schedule, contact parents, and redirect instructors, ensuring that the camp day went smoothly. Daily troubleshooting lead me to realize how difficult it can be to serve underprivileged students. Several of the students shared the difficulties they faced at home, and some students took breaks from camp so they could talk to a school counselor. This experience taught me the importance of making sure these students had things to do during the day and had teachers that made an effort to make school feel safe for them. One thing I was particularly proud of was organizing a snack program for the students so that they could have something to eat before they went home. Working with these underserved students taught me that when looking to promote equity, non-profits and city governments need to pay special attention to the trauma these students may experience at home. I plan to look into taking a political economy class at Williams to learn more about how funding to promote equity can be more effective.
The final week of my internship I worked on finishing an evaluative report of the camp. I focused on qualitative data and on instructor feedback to see how classroom management could be improved. Moreover, I got permission to send out a parent survey so that I could learn more about how our impact was being perceived. Writing this report taught me more about the importance of qualitative data, reading through the notes instructors and students write to try to identify a pattern. I look forward to my upcoming statistics class at Williams to try to learn more about how qualitative data can be tracked and evaluated.
Ultimately, my internship left me with a renewed interest in solving the challenges associated with effectively promoting equity. I plan to continue my study of economics at Williams so in future work with non-profits I can find ways for their altruism to be most effective. My co-workers at Code in the Schools were incredibly gracious and patient with me and I greatly appreciate having the opportunity to work with them. I am also very thankful to the friends and family of Liz Gray Erickson ’89 for this experience.