Student /Alumni Profiles

Allison MacDonald: 04.

Alli is completing an internship at The Baird Center, a residential and community-based treatment facility for emotionally disturbed children and their families.

"My experience at Champlain College in the social work program has been exhilarating. I have never felt that advice and support is far away. The classes that I have been involved in have taught me as much about myself as they have about social work. I have never sat in a class and wondered when I will actually use the material I am learning, because it is all real when you are interacting with people. As a sophomore I am currently involved in an internship. It involves working one-on-one with a fourteen-year-old girl who has behavioral and emotional difficulties. The experience has presented me with challenges; it has taught me to follow my instincts as well as the program material. Champlain College has created an environment that has shown me what things will be like when I graduate. In one of the core courses we were put into real life situations where we had to use the skills that we had learned. Now that I am participating in a very intense internship I find myself looking back and remembering the skills based on the in-class practice that we did. In the future I hope to work as a school social worker, and I know that I will look back on my experiences at Champlain when faced with the challenges that still lay ahead."