Brianna Gibson

Responsibilities

Martha's House of Hope is a maternity home that provides emergency shelter to pregnant moms in need of housing. I spend most of my time during the week at the house and help my boss with various activities. I get to spend a lot of one-on-one time with our resident(s), which I enjoy immensely. Sometimes I apply for grants, sometimes I get to go grocery shopping, sometimes I help with online projects - it's different every day, which makes it all the more enjoyable!

Accomplishments

I helped apply for several grants, something I never thought I'd do or even be qualified for. I'm so thankful I took a class on this before I started my internship!

Learning experience

I get to implement things I've learned over the past couple years in my HDFS major every day I'm there. I'm a visual learner, so it's been so good for me to visibly see what I've learned in class play out daily and have the chance to enhance my learning even more. Spending time in a setting where it's personal and small and I see hardship every day has shown me that this is truly the major for me. It's solidified my passion for wanting to help people!

What advice would you give?

Find something you WANT to do, and don't choose an internship simply because it was the first one available to you. I would also suggest not thinking about if it's paid or not as a top priority. If that's the difference between picking an internship where you're going to learn so much about the things you're interested in, apply for the scholarship that our college offers for unpaid internships! It's been so worth it to me to work "for free" instead of get paid. The experiences are far better than what I could make financially.