Name: Xinyi Lou
Class Year: 2023
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Shanghai, China
Internship Organization: Kinney Center for Autism at Saint Joseph鈥檚 University
Job Title: Music Activity Lead
Location: Philadelphia, PA
What鈥檚 happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
My job is to design and lead music activities during the summer camp for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children. According to their age and ability level, I need to adjust my lesson plans so that they can all enjoy themselves and grow confidence during music activities.
Why did you apply for this internship?
I have never worked with ASD students before, but working at this camp gave me opportunities of meeting those with autism of different ages. Also, I am interested in music therapy 鈥 while music therapy helps many different people, autism is one of the most common groups of people music therapists work with. Having lessons with them provided me with a chance to practice my music skills. Meanwhile, it helped me understand what autism was like and how we could help those with autism more.
What has been your favorite part of this internship?
I became so happy every time I saw kids entering the music classroom with smiles. I wrote a hello song for this camp and sang it every time at the beginning of the class. Gradually, some campers remembered this routine and when they saw me taking my guitar, they would start singing 鈥済ood morning鈥 which was the first sentence in my hello song. Also, sometimes during free time, some kids would hold my hand and invite me to dance with them with the music on. These experiences were so rewarding!
What is something you have learned from your internship that you didn鈥檛 expect?
Autism looked very different from what I expected. While most campers had a diagnosis of ASD, they didn鈥檛 all look the same. Their personalities, their needs, their favorite songs, their ways of communication - all of these were different. And these were things that I could learn from a textbook, thus working at the camp taught me a lot.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.