Ellyn Arevalo
Ellyn Arevalo
St. Olaf College
Participant in the 2010 ACM Student Symposium on Off-Campus Study
- Program: Academic Internship, Washington, D.C. Salvation Army - January 2010
- Graduation: May 2010
- Majors: Psychology and Sociology/Anthropology
Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking: Using Your Education to Meet Today's Pressing Issues
This past January I participated in an academic internship with the Salvation Army's Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking program at their National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Off-campus study enables you to take your academic skills and apply them to real world issues. As a sociology/anthropology major, I discovered how to utilize the theories I had learned in my courses to understand one of the most grievous social injustices of our day: sexual trafficking.
Prior to my internship, I knew almost nothing about sexual trafficking, and previously when I had encountered equally weighty topics in my courses, I felt most comfortable discussing them at a purely theoretical level. However, during the course of my internship, not only was I challenged to step outside of this safe academic "bubble" and educate myself about sexual trafficking, but I learned how one can then use their critical thinking and analytic skills to actually work against such a problem. I left D.C. convinced of the obligation I have as a student to use the knowledge I have acquired in college to better the world and fight injustice.
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