Blog Assignment 1

1.) Please tell us about yourself. For example what is the funniest thing that ever happened to you or what about your makes you interesting? 

Hi! It’s Safari. I am so excited to have finally arrived at this point in my undergraduate career, and to be so close to graduation and moving towards a very exciting and fulfilling future. One thing that makes me interesting is that I love to do volunteer work and do my best to get a jump on volunteer activities when I can, especially if they involve working with children. I completed volunteer work in Nicaragua where I worked alongside doctors and other volunteers to administer health services to a very poor population. At the health center in Nicaragua I gave pap smears and vaginal exams to women at all different stages of life, and I also taught children how to take care of themselves and wash their hands. We gave out hygiene supplies in the community and also built bathrooms and floors in houses. I also have very recently volunteered at the early childhood education center Head Start, which services underprivileged children and families, and I currently am a volunteer at the NYU hospital for Joint Diseases where I work in pediatrics with a recreational therapist, child life specialist and horticulture therapist. I am also planning a service trip abroad, most likely to Nepal to work with children in orphanages there this summer.

2) Please tell us your concentration. Why did you choose this concentration?

My concentration is family services. I chose the family services concentration because at the time I was not entirely sure if I wanted to go to graduate school for occupational therapy or speech-language pathology. I had heard a lot of great things about both professions, and was leaning much more towards speech pathology, but I had not seen either of these professionals in action so I was not entirely sure.

3) What is the name of your internship site and what is your position?

My internship is at Montclair Community Pre-K. At this internship I will be shadowing a speech language pathologist occasionally, and will mostly be working with children with speech and language difficulties and coming up with simple, fun, activities and programs to engage them and promote the use of verbal communication and assist with the learning of English.

4) What are your current career or graduate school plans? Or tell us if you plan to marry rich or travel the world or whatever your can dream of!

I have applied to 6 graduate schools, and my plan is to currently get accepted into at least one of them. My first choice school is Temple University because it has an incredible program and has absolutely everything that I am looking for including the location of the school. Currently my dream job is to become a pediatric speech language pathologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. If not the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia I would be interested at working at Children’s hospitals in Florida, or anywhere where the weather is warm.

5) Also, tell us about your family - for example - are your parents married or not, do you live with them, do you have siblings, pets etc? What is an activity you like to share with your family? etc.

I currently live on campus, but when I am on break for school I live at home with my family. My parents are married, and I have three siblings. I have an older sister who is currently 24, a younger brother who is 15 and a younger sister who is 8 years old. I am very close with my family and I have an excellent relationship with my parents and siblings. I do not have any pets. The activity I like to do my family is actually just sit down and have dinner and talk. My younger brother is at boarding school and my older sister is in school in Illinois so we are not always together all the time, so I love when we have time to catch up and just really all be together and enjoy each other’s company.

6) Please also write about 1 or 2 topics on the syllabus that interest you and WHY.

I am really interested in getting to part two of the course where we focus on preparing for careers, resumes, developing professionalism and ethics. I think that this will be helpful, and that even though I am somewhat knowledgeable on all of these subjects, the information that I gain from this part of the course could really help me to succeed in grad school or even help me to gain my dream job. I am also interested in learning more about working with multicultural families and same-sex families, so I can be as prepared and knowledgeable as possible when catering to all families as a speech language pathologist.