We were thrilled to see a recent article in UW Magazine that told the story of a program for high school students that the Library has been involved in since the beginning.
The UW Libraries High School Internship serves a small number of teens — 10 a year — but as writer Dan Parry documented, it has a big impact on the students, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college in the U.S.
Created in 2017 by UW librarians Elliott Stevens and Kian Flynn, the internship offers high school students a two-week summer learning experience on the UW Seattle campus. It aims to serve students from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in higher education and the field of librarianship.
Lake City Branch teen librarian Nancy Garrett helped recruit the first cohort of students and continues to promote it in the community. For the past two years, the Library has also helped fund the internship, providing a stipend for interns.
Since 2017, UW librarians have brought in groups of high school students for mentorship and a crash course on college life. The students leave camp with new skills, multimedia stories to share and a better sense of how their futures might look.
During their two weeks at the UW, the students learn research and digital skills, meet graduate students and researchers, and learn about the college application process and college life. As a culminating project, they create digital stories about their lives.
Several Lake City Branch teen patrons were featured in the story. Diana Quintero-Perez, who was an intern in 2018, said that the internship helped her decided to attend the UW because it made her feel she had a support system in place.
Diana now works at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as a research project interviewer, and volunteers as a tutor at the Lake City library (a full-circle experience that this Homework Help tutor also had).
“I got to meet so many people that were more than willing to help,” Quintero-Perez said in the story. “I always make sure that whatever programs I’ve been part of, I always give back and support the same.”
Be sure to read the entire article, and thanks to UW Magazine for publishing this story and for letting us reprint a few of the wonderful photos for this post.
Caption for top photo: 2024 UW Libraries interns Kaylyn (left) and Jim (center) enjoy a presentation from a fellow intern. Photo by Dan Parry.
Photos by Dan Parry, reprinted with permission from UW Magazine.
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