USD Magazine Fall 2015

TORERO  NEWS

Business administration major Meimei Nakahara (below left, alongside supervisor KishaLynn Elliott) served as a life skills support intern for San Diego’s Monarch School this summer.

by Ryan T. Blystone ON-THE- JOB TRAINING [ l i v e l i h o o d s ] Summer internships help students explore potential career paths J

uliana Mascari’s summer volunteer engagement internship with the United Way of San Diego included setting up a community event in City Heights and Vista, Calif. Featuring book distribution and literacy activities for parents and children, it was there that Mascari knew she was in the right place to make a difference. Mascari, recalling a University of Kansas-published research study, The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age Three , points to a significant finding about variance in vocabulary. The study indicates that a three-year-old child with work- ing professional parents has an estimated vocabulary of 1,116 words. Whereas, a child of wel- fare parents is estimated to have just 525 words at their dis- posal. The difference between these children is likely to grow as they do. That statistic inspires Mascari to do more, and deep- ens her belief that education can break the cycle of poverty, especially if it starts early. “I’m forever grateful for tak- ing part in affecting the lives of some of the most vulnerable members of our society,” says Mascari, an English major and theology and religious studies minor at the University of San Diego. “Philanthropy, spe- cifically philanthropy oriented towards supporting family stability, has always been my

earlier, particularly with liberal arts majors, because their skills are so phenomenal,” Darmon says. “We’ve been working on teaching them to articulate how those strengths can have an impact in a company.” Internships serve a valuable purpose, providing students with the necessary setting to gain confidence about a partic- ular career path, exposing

them to something that may or may not be a good fit. To help them experience potential workplaces firsthand, the center — through the generosity of USD alumnus Jamey Power ‘85 and the J.D. Power family as well as the USD Parents Fund — rewarded Mascari and 51 other under- graduate students with $2,000 scholarships to enable them

passion. Learning how this passion can be utilized in pur- suing a Changemaker career after college is invaluable.” Mascari’s insight and real- world application of her pas- sion during her summer 2015 internship brings a smile to USD Career Development Center Director Robin Darmon’s face. “We’ve been working a lot on how to get them out there

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