Sarah Billis '21

1) What are some skills/competencies (NACE) that you developed during your internship?

Collaboration and leadership, social networking, and gaining overseas connections.

2) How does this experience connect to your future career goals?

ZWIFLY has helped me to do research outside of the classroom and create my own brand with my blog! I am so grateful for the push to put my voice out there. I have a lot to learn and a lot to say in the field of psychology, career, and education, so this was such a great opportunity for me! I needed the support and guidance of my mentors Tricia and Marco to create amazing content. The subject matter perfectly aligned with my career goals and personal interests. It was so cool to collaborate with others in the process!

I have always imagined myself going abroad at some point, but as I narrowed down my career path to a choice between school psychology or school counseling, I realized I would have to confine my travel plans to summers. However, meeting Marco with the Motor Fairy Tales group has helped me see that there are psychology options outside of the US too, and that if I ever wanted to work in Milan, I could still pursue my psychology interests there.

The work with Marco has also supplemented my future career goals in that I want to work with kids, but prior to this opportunity have had experience on a more broad educational level in line with the Headstart curriculum for the Jumpstart after-school program. With Marco I was able to apply my psychology major and research with Zwifly into motor-development themed activities for kids. I have created a feelings storybook with interactive and physical components, come up with physical methods for children to supplement the main lessons from Marco’s storybook “Blip,” and I have created an outline explaining the benefits for an audio component to go along with “Blip.” The summer is not yet over so I look forward to continuing more projects with this company and to applying critical thinking skills to my research. This has helped me to put into practice what I might be doing with my own students in the future.

3) What advice would you give to other Holy Cross students?

In terms of internship advice, apply to as many openings as you can, even if they don’t completely, directly apply to what you’re interested in because one, you never know what will come out of the opportunity, it may actually be something you really like. Two, you will gain professional skills no matter what from being surrounded by professionals and adults who can give you all sorts of advice. Also in the internship advice category, even if you really didn’t like the experience, now you can pinpoint specific qualities you do NOT want in a job, boss, or work environment. Those things are just as important because you ultimately want to find the right fit