My Experience As An Intern

Intern Andrea Velasquez

My name is Andrea Velasquez and I’m a 21-year-old student at The University of Miami majoring in Psychology. Since the start of 2020, I had the unique opportunity to work as a Community Outreach Intern for the American Autism Association. 

My assignments varied from researching and writing blogs or working on the Autism Help Hotline to help connect families to local resources, to fundraising and outreach for the Youth Ambassadors Program. Additionally, due to the effects of COVID-19, all of our summer programming was cancelled, and I had the opportunity to help put together informational webinars and workshops for our community.

There were two things that really impacted me the most while interning with the American Autism Association. Firstly, being able to help individuals with autism and parents in finding resources through the Autism Help Hotline. Knowing that I was able to make even the slightest difference was a truly humbling experience. Second, another key experience was being able to translate all the informational kits and resources to Spanish. As a Spanish speaker, it was an honor to help those individuals that may see English as a barrier and often don’t have access to resources in Spanish. Not only that, but I was also able to familiarize myself with the various different resources that we had at our disposal, which paid off when working on the Autism Help Hotline.

It was extremely gratifying and eye opening to be able to help as an intern here. This internship has given me every experience a student studying psychology could ask for. My experience was beneficial with a number of opportunities to work on so many different projects in helping the autism community.

I am very thankful for this positive and educational experience and being able to build my understanding of the autism community. Thank you to everyone at the American Autism Association for this amazing experience, for your kindness and your willingness to teach me all the new things I was able to learn during the past 8 months.