Hey Everyone!
My name is Simone and I’m a rising senior here at Tulane studying Public Health and Portuguese. This summer I will be interning right here on Tulane’s uptown campus at The Center for Wellness & Health Promotion, known among students as theWELL. TheWELL is one of three branches of Campus Health, and focuses on keeping students healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. We work on a variety of health topics, including substance abuse prevention, sexual health promotion, sexual violence prevention, tobacco cessation and mental health promotion. As a freshman, I was accepted to the Tulane University Peer Health Educator (TUPHEs) program, an organization run by theWELL. Since then, I’ve become very involved in the missions of this office and of the TUPHE program. I started working in theWELL’s office when I was a sophomore, and was recently appointed to the TUPHE leadership team as TUPHE Coordinator! I love my job as a Peer Health Educator, so when I found out theWELL was searching for interns I decided to apply!
As I start my internship and new leadership position, my responsibilities to theWELL have grown and evolved. During the year, our office hosts lots of on-campus events and workshops, but over the summer, our main focus is preparing for the upcoming school year. One of my first main responsibilities is working with one of our staff members to give presentations about Campus Health to the incoming freshmen at their New Student Orientation sessions. The presentation will outline all the resources Campus Health has to offer and introduce some of theWELL’s initiatives, such as the OneWave Bystander Intervention program. My first presentation is next week and I’m excited to see how it goes!
This summer I’ll also be working with theWELL’s new health educator, Mat! Mat started at his new position as a Health Educator around the same time I started my summer internship. His area of focus is sexual violence prevention. Under his oversight, I will get to be involved in the Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Committee and some of Tulane’s other efforts to combat sexual violence in our community. It makes me very proud of where I work and of my university to see such importance and focus placed on this issue. I am honored to be involved and happy that students’ voices are being included.
Aside from these larger focuses, I have many ongoing projects that relate to theWELL’s various areas of focus and to my role as TUPHE Coordinator. I am thrilled to have the chance to contribute to the health of my community and work with an office that does so much for Tulane. I’m excited to see all that this opportunity has in store for me, and want to grow as much as possible from it. I hope that this summer can help me become a better leader and prepare me for my role as TUPHE Coordinator, as well as prepare me for a job in the field of public health after I graduate next May.
Thanks for reading! Look for more updates from me throughout the summer.
Best,
Simone