Peninsula Bridge, San Mateo, CA
This summer I interned as a teaching assistant with Peninsula Bridge, a nonprofit organization based in the Bay Area. Peninsula Bridge’s mission is to help high-achieving students from marginalized communities receive a thorough education and to provide opportunities for higher learning. As a teaching assistant, I helped put together and lead presentations for meetings with the students, held office hours to help students with their understanding of the material, and provided feedback for students on their final presentations. This specific internship was centered on a finance and investing class, and for each class a different employee of Capital Group would give a presentation about a different aspect of investing: basic personal finance, what makes a good investment, and how to invest your money.
The teaching element of the internship was a lesson in patience as I learned how to engage students in unfamiliar material. It was especially difficult for me because I am very passionate about finance and investing, and it was hard for me to believe others do not share my passion. The most difficult challenge was sharing information in a digestible manner while still preserving the substance necessary for the students to learn. However, these insights will help make me a better teacher of information and even a better learner in similar environments where I am the student. Additionally, the skills I have gained from this experience will translate into other areas of my life. For one, exposure to environments where I am expected to lead will help me in basketball, in the classroom, and in future professional endeavors.
The greatest takeaway for me from this experience can be explained by the following quote from Leonardo da Vinci, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” In many areas of my life, I notice a tendency to overcomplicate things, oftentimes in an effort to display my hard work and skills. Yet, teaching these students helped me learn that mastering simple concepts and harnessing the ability to convey complex information in an elementary fashion displays my expertise more effectively than if I were to speak in complex financial constructs. I would not have been able to encounter these valuable lessons in a classroom setting, so I am fortunate to have had this opportunity over the summer.
I am incredibly thankful to the ’68 Center for Career Exploration and the Class of 1966 for providing me with support to pursue this internship with Peninsula Bridge. I will take with me from this experience insight into how I approach leading and being led, as well as an elevated passion for investing. I hope that the students left the class with a deeper understanding of what makes a worthy long-term investment; as the Peninsula Bridge team invested our time and energy into them, this internship did the same for me.
Megamenu Social