Category: Student Perspective

Summer with I Have a Dream Foundation-Los Angeles

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Cathy Hanh Tran, COL ’19

During the summer of 2018 I had the wonderful opportunity to intern with the I Have a Dream Foundation-Los Angeles (IHAD-LA). I Have a Dream Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves youth from low-income communities as early as kindergarten and works with these children until college. Through first-hand experience, I saw how this long-term commitment to their students unfolds.

Over the first 3.5 weeks of the internship, I worked directly with one of their LA student cohorts. These children were entering the freshman year of high school. The organization planned a summer program for the children designed to help them with their transition into high school. I occasionally had the pleasure of tutoring the children in math, and throughout this program I lead an arts and crafts class which helped me get to know the students and their interests and talk to them about how college relates to it. It was my greatest joy being able to connect two students to current college students at universities that they were interested in applying to.

As the weeks went by, the commitment that the program coordinators have for each child to provide well-rounded services became even more apparent to me. Program coordinators scheduled home visits with the students’ parents to assess the needs of the children and their families. After these visits, I researched resources (e.g. free food pantries, housing shelters) that we could direct families to. During this time, I also drafted a curriculum for the students’ ninth grade program. The core components touched upon: academic, college/career, socio-emotional development, and health and wellness. Based on my experiences with the students, I analyzed their needs and incorporated what the parents expressed as their child’s needs.

One of my favorite memories of the internship was during the organization’s end-of-the-year party where all the LA student cohorts came together to enjoy great food, music, and activities. This was where I met an inspiring program coordinator who was celebrating the high school graduation of the cohort she had been working with since they were in first-grade. She is now preparing to start the cycle again with a new first-grade cohort. As I watched the high school graduates come up to her with joy, I could tell that their relationship was more than a mentorship. For me this reinforced the importance of investing in children and creating programs that offer them opportunities.

World Relief

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Alexandra Ciullo, COL ’20

This summer marked my first exposure to the world of professional internships. Like most Penn students, I started the application process early and wrote dozens of cover letters. I was–and still am–bent on the idea that I want to be an immigration lawyer. But could I really say that without ever having worked in immigration law in any capacity? I decided this summer it was time to find out. As an Immigration Legal Services Assistant at World Relief Chicago, that’s exactly what I did.

World Relief is an international organization that strives to welcome immigrants and refugees to the U.S. in many ways. They include English classes, help finding employment,teaching clients to use public transportation, and helping them secure legal status in the U.S.

This summer I got my first taste of the 9-5 professional life, and I loved it. I spent my days filling out federal immigration forms for clients, studying clients and their families in order to build personal narratives for their applications, interpreting for Spanish speaking clients, and even attended federal immigration court.

This summer at World Relief exposed me to the good, bad, and the ugly of U.S. immigration law. I learned how incredibly complex and intricate it is, the years and sometimes decades of waiting it requires, and how much of an emotional and financial burden it can be to try to become a U.S. citizen. However, I also got to personally notify clients that their DACA renewals had been approved, meaning they could remain in the country they call home for another 2 years. I was able to tell citizenship applicants that their applications had been approved and that they would soon have an Oath Ceremony. I was able to reassure a worried U.S. resident that she could return to Mexico to visit her sick relative, and that no one could take away her resident status upon reentry to the U.S.

Without this summer experience, I would be completely in the dark about what a career in immigration law truly entails. I learned that immigration law is wildly more diverse than I thought, and that I really enjoy certain aspects of it and really detest others. Going forward, I am certain that immigration law is still what I want to pursue and now I am much more prepared for what a career in this field will look like.

While my commute could be a pain and I didn’t spend my days lounging on the beach, I am extremely grateful to Career Services for affording me the opportunity to intern at World Relief this summer. I learned so much that could never be taught in the classroom and left feeling much more sure about my future career aspirations. Most importantly, I was able to play a small role in helping such vulnerable populations feel more safe and welcome in their new home.

The Hub of Hope

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Carolyn Ziembo, MSW ’19

This summer I was fortunate to serve as the Graduate Policy Intern in the Office of the Deputy Managing Director of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the City of Philadelphia. Over the course of the summer, I worked on a variety of projects, many of which focused on the City’s response to the current opioid crisis and associated northeast Philadelphia encampments, homeless prevention, and affordable housing. The experience provided me with a wealth of information on how the City serves vulnerable populations and responds to health crises, as well as skills in program management and memo drafting.

One of my favorite projects was supporting the Hub of Hope. The Hub of Hope is a daytime engagement center for people experiencing homelessness. It is operated by SEPTA, the City of Philadelphia, Project HOME, and Philabundance in the subconcourse adjacent to Suburban Station. At the Hub, which opened in January 2018, guests are welcome to have a warm cup of coffee, eat a meal, take a shower, wash their clothes, get medical care, and access treatment and housing. Pulling from a list I maintained of current projects and tasks, I prepped agendas for meetings at the Hub every other week with program managers from the City and nonprofits. Attending the meetings was a great way to see how municipal staff and nonprofit organizations interact and successfully run a social service program together.

In addition to Hub of Hope logistics projects throughout the summer, such as ensuring volunteers had clear protocols and instructions in accessing to the Hub, I also took part in the outreach for Meals and More, a grant program designed to bring Philadelphia volunteer meal providers to the Hub. I was involved in every aspect of the grant process, including contacting potential applicants and collecting applications, creating criteria determinants and score sheets, scheduling and attending the review panel, and ultimately giving notice to the grant winners. I enjoyed working with the meal providers, who were all thrilled to begin serving at the Hub. It was another example of the City and nonprofit organizations partnering to best serve Philadelphia’s vulnerable populations.

Beyond the Hub, I sat in on many meetings and observed firsthand how the City is responding to the opioid crisis in Philadelphia. Again, collaboration was key in the planning and implementing of various strategies and meetings were attended by people from across many City departments, as well as from nonprofits directly serving those affected by opioid use disorder. It was also encouraging to see the City regularly hold meetings with representatives from Kensington-area community groups and advocates. Additionally, I was fortunate to go on a site visit to the area hardest hit by the opioid crisis and see for myself the work that had been accomplished. I found the trip very useful; being able to visualize what was being discussed in meetings was important to understanding all aspects the topic. I think this is true for any policymaking or programming.

Although I had worked and interned in nonprofits previously, this summer’s internship was a new look for me into how City government functions. I was fortunate to meet and learn from so many knowledgeable people and am grateful for all the insight I gained.

The Connectome Project

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Natalia Parjane, COL’20

At the University of Pennsylvania, I am a Cognitive Science major, concentrating in Neuroscience. During this past summer, I worked in the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine in the Ophthalmology department under Dr. Jessica Morgan. She is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and the Director of Advanced Retinal Imaging. Every day, I went to work on the “Connectome Project.” The Connectome Project is like the Genome Project, but for the eyes and the brain. It is still in its early years and is very significant to the field, so I was honored to have the chance to work under Dr. Morgan’s guidance.

The department has an interesting imaging device called the Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscope, of which there are only a dozen in the world. Its built is based upon the method of Adaptive Optics in astronomy, which rids the data of aberrations. The machine measures the eye’s optical aberrations, compensates for them, and then enables high resolution retinal imaging. In the end, the device gives a beautiful look into the eye of a subject, presenting numerous rods and cones.


I assisted in imaging and processing data of the retina for the department. I took notes as each subject was being imaged and was able to participate in recording the subjects’ retina in vivo. After imaging, my work consisted of transforming the videos taken by the Adaptive Optics Scanning Light Ophthalmoscope into images to create a final montage of the part of the eye that was imaged. Usually, we imaged in four directions resulting in a cross-like montage.

The subjects imaged consisted of those with normal eyes and those with retinal diseases. The main disease assessed was Choroideremia, a condition that leads to progressive blindness, specifically tunnel vision. Choroideremia has 5000 cases in the U.S. and is caused by a genetic mutation. There are two objectives of the research: to gain insight to the disease mechanism and to assess the progression of the disease and treatment efficacy. The montages I assisted in creating are important in determining the difference in photoreceptors between normal controls and subjects with Choroideremia. Cone density is smaller for subjects with the disease than normal controls. Doing this will allow the department to fulfill its objectives.

Another amazing aspect of my internship is the lab meetings that took place every Monday. Two other labs work closely together with that of Dr. Morgan’s. They are led by Dr. Geoffrey Aguirre, an Associate Professor of Neurology and Dr. David Brainard, a Professor of Psychology. All three labs contribute different information to the study of vision and organization of the visual cortex. These meetings were often two hours long consisting of presentations and discussions. This aspect of my internship gave me more insight to the field that I wouldn’t have been able to achieve with just studying. Ultimately, the Connectome Project is a project that will take many years, but one that has great significance in the field of Ophthalmology and I can’t wait to see the outcomes.

A DICEy Summer

This is the next in a series of posts by recipients of the 2018 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they’ve been spending their summer. You can read the entire series here.

This entry is by Ayrton Kessel, SEAS ’20

This summer I conducted research on the links between climate change and the economy with Professor Irina Marinov. Currently, there is limited literature exploring said links. However, the implications of anthropogenic climate change and its effects on the global economy are becoming more important for policy implementation.

There are models within this field that are frequently used, called Integrated Assessment Models (also known as IAM’s). This summer, I collected multiple IAM’s and examined each in detail. The Dynamic Integrated Climate – Economy Model (DICE) was selected as the best IAM to begin our research with. DICE was developed by Dr. William Nordhaus, an economics professor at Yale University. The DICE model optimizes a social welfare function, which is the discounted sum of the population-weighted utility of per capita consumption. The climate model is represented by two temperature boxes, with the temperature split between that of the atmosphere and that of the lower ocean. Radiative forcing is a function of atmospheric carbon concentration, emissions, and exogenous forcing. In turn, the radiative forcing is added to the atmospheric temperature. The carbon model is three boxed, split between the atmosphere, upper ocean, and lower ocean. Emissions are sent into just the atmosphere. There are certain parameters that influence the flow rate within both the climate and carbon model.

The damage function is the link between the climate/carbon models and the economic model within DICE. The damage function is composed of atmospheric temperature, and influences the net economic output. The gross economic output is a Cobb – Douglas equation, and the discount rate is a Ramsey equation.

There are several outputs of DICE. For example, there are industrial emissions, population, net economic output, etc. over the duration of the simulation that can be examined as an output. The temperature and carbon changes are also included in the yield.

The most important output of DICE is the social cost of carbon (SCC). The SCC assesses the total discounted damage to social welfare caused by an emission of CO2 occurring in a particular year. It is expressed as the dollar value of the total damages from emitting one ton of CO2 into the atmosphere.

After finding a version of DICE available in MATLAB, I began to conduct parameter analysis. In total, there are around thirty parameters that can be varied. And each variable has a different effect on different outputs. Within DICE, I found that climate sensitivity effects the social cost of carbon the most. Climate sensitivity is the equilibrium temperature change in response to changes of the radiative forcing. This is finding is important because climate sensitivity is uncertain and has a normal probability distribution, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This can drastically affect policy planning.

Finally, I began to replicate research papers that used DICE in some format. For example, I replicated a Nordhaus paper from 2017 that examined the social cost of carbon in depth. Sea ice loss was a scenario that I examined from another paper. Permafrost feedback was the most recent scenario I replicated.

In the future, I will continue my research into the school year. The next step is to conceive our own scenarios or introduce probability. This research was a worthwhile experience, especially since IAMs are an emerging field in climate science. I would like to thank VPUL and everybody involved for helping me financially this summer. Without the grant, this would not have been possible!