Name:  Jahziel Paulines

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: Chronic Diseases Informatics Program

Major(s)/Minor(s): Health Administration

Expected Graduation Year: May 2015

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service- learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

I have to develop curriculum where patients are informed about their condition through a tablet. With each curriculum, I make questions and answers on a Word Document. Then I add images related to each question and audio record the statements that correspond to each question. After, I transfer all of the questions, answers, images and recordings onto Excel. The programmer then transfers everything onto the tablet. And once everything has been reviewed and ready to go, the tablet is ready to be used by patients.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I enjoy the peacefulness in the office. It helps me think and concentrate on the assignments assigned to me. I also like the assignments given. They're interesting and even though the assignments seem tedious, the work helps me pass through time.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I've gained a lot of insight on how the department runs every day. I learned about the responsibilities that other opportunities might not have. I also gained friendship. I've met most of the people who work in the department and was able to work with them well.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

When there are opportunities open for you, don't close them out. Take as many as you can and make the best out of it. At least stay with one internship and be consistent with it. Be the best intern you can be, get acknowledged, and put yourself out there. Hopefully the right one for you will be the last door open.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

There are things I've learned that I've never learned before, such as how to make a curriculum, how to complete excel and edit audio recordings. Because there are multiple assignments given, there are a lot of topics I've learned about. The experiences I've learned will definitely help me in my future.

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

You're never too young to plan for your future. As long as you start somewhere, there's a possibility you will be everywhere. Work hard and play harder. In the end, your future will be brighter. Have some faith in yourself and believe. You'll get there.

On Thursday, February 27, President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper, a White House initiative that empowers young men of color.

My Brother’s Keeper will partner with businesses, government officials, faith leaders, non-profit organizations and private groups. These groups have pledged to invest in programs aimed at helping men of color, and replicate successful efforts across the country.

Dr. Hrabowski, chair of the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, attended the event along with national leaders including General Colin Powell, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Congresswoman Marcia Fudge.

At the event, President Obama said, “Government cannot play the only – or even the primary—role… broadening the horizons for our young men and giving them the tools they need to succeed will require a sustained effort from all of us.”

Learn more about “My Brother’s Keeper” here and Dr. Hrabowski’s involvement with the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans here.

One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

• Carlo DiClemente, Psychology, on New Books Network
• Dave Marcotte, Public Policy, in The Atlanta Journal Constitution and Bloomberg Businessweek
• Thomas Schaller, Political Science, Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun
• Justin Vélez-Hagan, Public Policy, Op-Ed in Fox News Latino
• Dennis Coates, Economics, in The Daily Iowan

Check out all the other great campus news on Insights Weekly.

Earlier this month, two Washington County Republican delegates signed on as co-sponsors of a bill that could stop the National Security Agency from operating in Maryland by cutting off utility services to the agency, among other proposals. An article published February 28 in The Herald-Mail examines why delegates Andrew Serafini and Neil Parrott initially supported the measure, titled the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, but later requested that their names be removed from it.

Laura Hussey, an assistant professor of political science, was interviewed for the article and noted the Maryland bill is similar to legislation in other states where the NSA operates and reflects anxiety about the agency and its operations.

A recent story published on fact-checking website PolitiFact examines a claim by the Texas Liberty PAC that a Republican congressman sponsored a bill that funded the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The claim is that Lamar Smith, a U.S. House member from San Antonio, introduced the 2014 Omnibus Spending Bill, which eventually turned into the primary vehicle through which programs in the ACA were funded.

PolitiFact asked Political Science Professor Roy Meyers to weigh in on the issue. He said that the omnibus bill did provide some funding to administer the ACA, but Smith’s original bill was intended to serve a different purpose.

“So it’s really a classic dirty trick by the Texas Liberty PAC to not acknowledge that the House Rules Committee made this bill the vehicle for passing the Consolidated Appropriations Act, amending the original bill to add all of the appropriations language,” Meyers said.

You can read the full article on the PolitiFact website here.

photo courtesy of Scientific American

We’ve genetically modified bacteria, plants, and animals with great success…are humans next? 

This week the FDA held advisory meetings to discuss the safety and effectiveness of a new method of conception: three-parent in vitro fertilization.

In essence, this method would take the eggs of two women and the sperm of one man in order to produce a baby. The purpose would be to prevent inherited mitochondrial diseases. A woman would be able to birth a child without passing on her defective mitochondrial DNA. 

So what is the problem? Any parent would want their child to be born free of things like blindness and epilepsy, right? 

Well, as in any emerging medical procedure, there are ethical issues to be addressed. 

Many critics of this procedure believe it will lead to the creation of “designer babies.” They believe that if this process is adopted then we will be one step closer to altering things like height or intelligence in children. 

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, has gone as far as to claim that this procedure will introduce:

“a regime of high-tech consumer eugenics” and be “the first time a government body had okayed genetic changes for humans and their descendants.”

On the other side, Phil Yeske, chief science officer for the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, stated that: 

“In my mind, its not eugenics, it’s affording potential for women affected by mitochondrial disease to have a healthy child.”

Where do you stand? Is three-parent in vitro fertilization a promising medical advancement? Or does it remind you of something you’d see in Brave New World?

During the last week, multiple internships have been posted to UMBCworks for students like you! Check them out (plus many, many more opportunities) by logging in to UMBCworks today.

ID: 9264117 – Journalism Intern (Men’s E-News)

ID: 9264146 – Paid Web Design/Update, and Social Media Intern (Baltimore-Washington Electric Vehicle Initiative)

ID: 9264162 – Summer Arts Administration Internships (Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation)

ID: 9264075 – Public Relations Intern (Weinberg Harris & Associates)

ID: 9264106 – Record Preparation, Digitization, & Electronic Archives (Maryland State Archives)

ID: 9264021 – Urban Archaeology Intern (Jewish Museum of Maryland)

ID: 9264022 – Exhibitions and Programs Marketing Intern (Jewish Museum of Maryland)

To access these positions, log in to your UMBCworks account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships Topic inmyUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well ashundreds of other job postings! 

Please note you MUST have an approved resume to apply to positions. To schedule an appointment, click on "Request a Counseling Appointment" via the UMBCworks homepage or call 410-455-2216.