Name: Amal Yassin
Class Year: 2018
Major: Biology and Psychology
Hometown: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Internship Placement: Nationalities Service Center (NSC)
Job Title: Assistant Case Manager
Location: Philadelphia

What’s happening at your internship?

My internship focused on helping refugees and immigrants through various important processes such as legal protections, community integration, access to health care and opportunities to achieve English language proficiency. I specifically worked in the health and wellness division of this organization in hopes of providing the health access that is critical for all newly arrived refugees and immigrants.

Why did you apply for this internship?

I applied for this internship because I knew I wanted to use both my Arabic proficiency and my pre-med background in order to help refugees transcend challenging situations. Throughout this internship, I was able to work with many Arabic speaking clients (making up 90% of newly arrived refugees and immigrants), which helped in overcoming the difficult language barrier that many refugees face when arriving to the United States. Additionally, since I was working in the health and wellness team, I was able to use my pre-med background to provide insight and understanding on many medically complex cases.

Can you give us three adjectives and three nouns that describe your internship experience?

Three adjectives: Supportive, Optimistic, Understanding
Three nouns: Communication, Integrity, Hope

Was this internship what you expected it to be?

It is difficult to answer this question with a simple “yes” or “no” because in a way, this internship was exactly what I expected and in other ways, I was very surprised. For instance, the work and the services that I assisted with this summer are exactly what I applied for; I was able to combine and use my academic background in pre-med with my Arabic speaking proficiency to assist numerous Middle Eastern families. I was surprised with this internship because I did not expect to build such strong and caring relationships with my clients — many of them quickly became like family, offering me invites to their homes, food and gifts. When I initially applied to this internship, I did not expect it to be hard to say goodbye to my clients but it was one of the most difficult parts of this internship.