This summer, Andrew Walters ’28, a Jewish studies and elementary education double major from Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, has an internship with Jewish Learning Venture, an education nonprofit. Walters was connected with this experience through JEVS Human Services’s Franklin C. Ash Internship Program, a highly competitive opportunity for undergraduates with an interest in nonprofit leadership.
Why did you decide to pursue this experience?
I chose to pursue a summer internship at Jewish Learning Venture because it is an organization whose projects have given a lot to my life from books, community connections, friendships, educational resources, and more. This internship allows me to give back to my community while learning skills such as database management, bookkeeping, curriculum development, program planning and logistics, organization, and many more. Through the Franklin C. Ash Internship Program, I am additionally gaining professional development experience including resume development, mock interviews, LinkedIn workshops, and opportunities to network with professionals in the Jewish nonprofit world (a career path that I am interested in pursuing).
My educational coursework has helped me in this internship as I am constantly drawing back on different theories, resources, and practices my professors and cooperating teachers in fieldwork have introduced me to in helping to create ideas for professional development sessions or programming for events.
What does a typical day look like for you?
As this internship is hybrid and encompasses a wide variety of projects, it is hard to say what a typical day is like. In a day in the office (which is a little bit more than half of the internship), I may be labeling and organizing books and materials in the morning, then working on program/curriculum development in the afternoon.
How have your Muhlenberg experiences helped you in this work?
My educational coursework has helped me in this internship as I am constantly drawing back on different theories, resources, and practices my professors and cooperating teachers in fieldwork have introduced me to in helping to create ideas for professional development sessions or programming for events. My Jewish studies coursework gives me the mindset that no two Jewish people have the same experience but can be connected in many different ways, an idea central to the mission of Jewish Learning Venture.
