This Spring semester, I volunteered as a General Research Assistant at the University of Maryland's Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention (CECEI), located at the Anacostia Building in Riverdale Park, Maryland. CECEI is a research center within the College of Education whose mission is to translate research into scalable educational practices, build community capacity, and promote family engagement, particularly in underserved areas of Maryland like Prince George's County. I worked under the guidance of multiple supervisors, primarily Andrea, Beth, and Jacquelyn, as well as Judi and Claudia, across a wide range of project areas. The overarching goal of the center is to address the critical shortage of qualified early childhood educators in Maryland while expanding access to quality care in high-need communities. Programs like the Maryland Early EdCorp (MEEC) and initiatives supporting CDA® credential attainment are central to how CECEI works toward that mission.
Work weeks at CECEI varied each week, which made the experience both challenging and rewarding. On any given day, I might be compiling email lists for the Credential Project survey, conducting quality assurance testing on the CDA quiz, or cleaning transcripts from focus group sessions for research analysis. Other days involved more hands-on technical work, like configuring and troubleshooting Chromebooks to be distributed to elementary schools in PG County, which required verifying software installations, checking Wi-Fi connectivity, and ensuring each device met program standards before being sent out. I also spent significant time in document production creating apprenticeship completion certificates for MEEC courses, building makeup work templates for missed sessions, and organizing course slideshows and activity sheets. Throughout all twelve weeks, I also dedicated regular time to professional development, building my proficiency in SPSS, Excel, and Adobe through guided learning sessions that I then applied directly to my project work.
This experience allowed me to draw on and deepen skills from multiple courses. In my PSYC300 course, I had prior experience working with Excel and collecting and organizing data, and that foundation proved directly applicable at CECEI. When I was tasked with compiling childcare center email lists or organizing children's book data in Excel, I already had a working understanding of how to structure and manage data effectively, and the internship pushed me to refine that further. Similarly, my SGC Colloquium taught me how to read and interpret research data to understand a phenomenon, and I applied that lens when comparing data across Maryland counties to identify which communities were underserved in terms of childcare resources and which organizations CECEI had yet to reach. Seeing that process in action, moving from raw data to meaningful, actionable insight, made the research methods I had studied in class feel tangible and purposeful in a way they hadn't before. I also expanded my technical knowledge considerably, gaining hands-on experience in SPSS and Adobe, which were new tools for me when entering the internship. Learning to work through unfamiliar software, ask clarifying questions when I made mistakes, and apply new skills in real time helped me grow both technically and professionally.
This experience revealed a lot about where I want to go professionally and academically. Going in, I had a general interest in psychology, but working at CECEI helped me discover a specific area I'm genuinely drawn to: applied research with a data analysis focus. The tasks I found most engaging were QA testing, transcript cleaning, data compilation, and Excel organization, all pointed toward a data-oriented path within the psychology field. I discovered that I not only enjoyed this kind of work, but I also performed well in it, which gave me confidence in pursuing it further. If I could have better prepared for this experience, I would have taken a statistics or data management course earlier in my academic career, as a stronger background in SPSS before starting would have allowed me to contribute more immediately. Going forward, I plan to explore coursework or a minor in data science or applied statistics, and I am seriously considering future internships that combine psychology research with data analysis. This internship has made me see that applied research roles, where the work has a direct impact on communities, are exactly where I want to be, both in the near term and in my longer-term career.
The internship was a highly collaborative environment. I worked alongside fellow research assistants, including Fatemah, as well as multiple supervisors across different project areas. My role often placed me as a supportive contributor, someone who could step into whatever was needed, whether that was a data task, a document production assignment, or technical troubleshooting. This flexibility was somewhat new for me; I was used to having a more defined single role in group settings. At CECEI, I had to be adaptable and responsive to different supervisors and shifting priorities, which helped me develop a more versatile working style. Being part of a large, mission-driven organization with multiple moving parts taught me how to communicate clearly across teams, follow up when I needed clarification, and take ownership of my assigned work without needing constant direction.
Absolutely. I would strongly recommend this internship to future SGC students because it offers something that classroom learning alone cannot: the experience of functioning inside a large, professional organization working toward real social impact. You gain exposure to tools like SPSS, Excel, and Adobe that are common across many fields, and you learn how to navigate professional communication, meet deadlines, and collaborate with people at different levels of an organization. Beyond the technical skills, CECEI gives you a window into how research is applied to solve real community problems, something that is especially valuable for students interested in psychology, public health, education, or policy. It challenges you to show up, be reliable, and contribute meaningfully, and those are lessons that carry into any career path.