Hey there! My name is Christie Collamer and this is my last semester at ASU!! YAY!!!! My concentration areas are education and psychology. When I first started college, I really liked psychology, and a friend introduced me to education classes soon after, which I fell in love with. I think psychology reflects my personality better than education because I really enjoy thinking about things in depth. Some of the hardest classes in my life have been psychology classes and as much as I have cursed these classes day after day, I ended up learning so many things that have been valuable in some creatively random ways that make me appear to be smart and that I've listened pretty well throughout the years.
My intern site is at a speech pathology center in Tempe where I am assisting a speech pathologist with her clients. I visited this site a couple years ago while I was taking a special education class at SCC and had to visit special education environments. I worked with a teenage boy named Ben who has down syndrome. He has an hour-long session every Wednesday and my goal is to be in his session every Wednesday. The owner also has another family who has two children with down syndrome who have gone to the speech pathology center for many years and just adopted a child from China who also has down syndrome. It's amazing to see that a family has given hope to another child who may not have had the same opportunities from another family.
My time so far has been somewhat introductory; I’ve mostly just participated in activities with clients on my first day. I know I will learn more about how to communicate with children with special needs in this experience. Although I don’t expect to become a special education teacher, and probably a teacher at all, I think the values I will learn will be important. As far as work goes, I’m not sure what I’ll do after graduation, but patience will be important no matter what, which is also what I’m learning at my site. I have a few job opportunities right now, but nothing that relates to my internship.
Obviously my internship is pretty related to the education theme of this class because I am working with children with speech impediments in a structured, educational environment. Other than this, my life is fairly undetermined after graduation, and I really don’t know where I’ll end up.
