Name: Leila Vazquez
Class Year: 2024
Major: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Hometown: Asunción, Paraguay
Internship Organization: Temple University
Job Title: Teaching Experience for Undergraduates
Location: Philadelphia, PA
What's happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
The Teaching Experience in STEM (TE-STEM) program at Temple University allows undergraduate students pursuing science majors to engage in STEM education within the Greater Philadelphia region. The goal of the program is to improve equity in STEM education by providing free access to quality science courses to high school students. The program hired college students with no educational background, and for a month, we underwent an accelerated science education course at Temple University to prepare ourselves for our new responsibilities. Now we are responsible for preparing and delivering science courses to over 60 students that signed up for the STEM-UP summer program.
Why did you apply for this internship?
I applied to this internship because I wanted explore teaching as a possible career choice and because believe that good STEM education should be available for everyone.
Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you?
Taking the role of an educator allowed me to develop confidence in my science knowledge while also improving my leadership skills. Through this experience, I learned how to lead a classroom, which is something that I never thought I would do, and to deliver biology lessons. Communicating complex biology concepts will be extremely useful for any future career, as well as being comfortable adopting leadership roles.
What is most rewarding about your internship?
The most rewarding part of my internship is being able to motivate students to learn science. The students come with different educational backgrounds, but they are all equally curious and eager to learn. Being passionate about science, I am grateful for the opportunity to share this passion with them.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.