August 6, 2024
We had so many Scholarship recipients with interesting summer experiences that we couldn’t fit all of it into one blog post!
Keep reading to find out what some of our recipients have been up to this summer, what they’ve learned and how Meeting Street Scholarship Fund has been a part of that experience.
This is the second story in a three-part series. To read the first installment, which included profiles on Scholarship recipients Viviana Thompson, India Jackson, Diego Rodriguez, Daisy Perez and Cadence Brown, click here.
To read the third part, which included profiles on Gabriel Hosey, Millie Rice, Brooke Jewell, Farrah El Kachbendi and Tiffany Hammond, click here.
AARON GILLAM, intern mechanic at the Mount Pleasant Waterworks. He also traveled to South Africa with one of Clemson’s campus ministries known as Campus Outreach doing a Cross-Cultural Project.
What’s your post-college professional aspiration? I am hoping to go into some form of Christian ministry post-college. Honestly, I do not know what that may look like. It could be in a church, working missions abroad, or working for a non-profit company.
What has your summer job involved? Both of these opportunities have been amazing for personal growth and training in practical skills. I have been doing this mechanic internship for years with this company and each time I return, I learn new hands-on skills. While I was in South Africa, we did a variety of things, from engaging with students within their culture to learn more about their backgrounds and lives, to helping a local church with some much-needed manual labor to renovate their building.
What’s been the most memorable part of this experience? I would say for both experiences, the most memorable part is the people. Being able to interact with people from different backgrounds and experiences is huge in understanding the world arounds us as well as how you could use those interactions to help yourself grow.
If I was to be more specific, I would say two experiences from South Africa standout. The first being that I was able to worship God with other university students in South Africa. Realizing that you can so deeply connect with others from a very different background than your own was very impactful to my spiritual walk. Second, it would be seeing a level of poverty that I have never experienced before and understanding that there are so many things in life we take for granted. It taught me to be much more thankful to God for even the smallest of things in life.
How has the Meeting Street Scholarship made this experience possible for you? The Meeting Street Scholarship has helped tremendously because I would have never gotten connected to this campus ministry if I did not make it Clemson. This scholarship made it possible for me to go to college and not have to be as worried about the financial portion of my college experience. Therefore, the scholarship allowed me to feel secure in going to volunteer for a month across the world. Overall, I truly cannot thank God enough for the Meeting Street Scholarship and the way it has helped me to not only be able go to college but to has helped me to take opportunities to learn more about myself and the world around me.
KALEELAH EL-AMIN, law clerk at the 9th Circuit Public Defender’s Office
What’s your post-college professional aspiration? To attend law school and practice criminal defense law.
What has your summer job involved? Assist multiple attorneys in preparing for trials by conducting legal research on case law and statutes relevant to criminal defense strategies. Screen/interview potential clients that may qualify for a public defender. Observe courtroom proceedings, including trials and hearings, to gain insight into courtroom procedures and advocacy techniques. Prepare and review discovery and trial exhibits under attorney supervision. Conduct jail visits to consult with incarcerated clients, discussing case development and providing updates on legal proceedings.
What’s been the most memorable part of this experience? The most memorable part of this experience has been the jail visits. I have had the opportunity to experience the more personal aspect of being an attorney by getting to know clients’ backgrounds and hearing from them what experiences and circumstances put them in the position they are in now.
How has the Meeting Street Scholarship made this experience possible for you? The Meeting Street Scholarship made this experience possible as Senior Program Director John Huber McNealy helped me search for internships in the legal field. He was very active in my search for a summer internship with me and checked in with my search very often.
LILAH URBINA-RODRIGUEZ, intern at Gold Star Urgent Care in Florence, S.C.
What’s your post-college professional aspiration? I would like to work as a RN for two to three years before returning to school for my master’s to continue my career as a Nurse Practitioner, specifically specializing in pediatrics.
What has your summer job involved? With this internship, I get to shadow the owner, Mrs. Latoya Lane-Milo, FNP-C. I also get to coordinate community events by setting-up, getting flyers and brochures, and working the events. This summer, the urgent care launched a campaign known as Energizing the Pee Dee in which we set up at different businesses and offer B12 shots. I handle getting different businesses involved, promoting B12 to the community, managing consent forms, and payment upon set-up. I also help with our social media and marketing.
What’s been the most memorable part of this experience? That’s been being able to have a mentor through this internship that has pursued a career I would like to follow. Mrs. Latoya Lane-Milo FNP-C is a Nurse Practitioner who owns her own practice. It is nice to have someone who can guide me in my career and is also available to answer any questions I may have along the way. It has also provided me insight on behind-the-scenes details of running a practice.
How has the Meeting Street Scholarship contributed to this experience? The Meeting Street Scholarship has granted me the opportunity of financial stability while in college allowing me to take part in internships that will benefit me in my career as opposed to turning down beneficial internships to work full-time to pay for college expenses.
JOHN SINGLETARY, participated in the NOAA InFish program and partnered with the Penobscot Nation on the preliminary work on a long-term monitoring research project
What’s your post-college professional aspiration? I will be continuing on with schooling to get my PhD in biology focusing on animal speciation.
What has your summer job involved? While working in Maine, I have: written a grant proposal and been accepted for Lidar aerial image mapping of the study site; worked on literature reviews for the interactions between Atlantic salmon and beavers, the study species for this project; Used Global Mapping Pro to analysis the imaging from the plane survey; and done a lot of field work collecting data.
What’s been the most memorable part of this experience? The most memorable part of this experience has been the connections and relationships that I have formed with my mentors who have seriously solidified me to continue onto grad school and the other interns of the program who have become my friends in such a short time period.
How has the Meeting Street Scholarship contributed to this experience? It helped me by ensuring that I had the knowledge necessary to be accepted into this program and the skills to conduct my research. Through the last two years, the scholarship has provided funding allowing me to take college courses that both interested me and related to my field that I otherwise would not have been able to take. With the skills gained from these classes such as my Herpetology Monitoring study with Dr. Franklin William at the University of South Carolina, I have been amply prepared to tackle the task set before me this summer.
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