Campus of Change

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Life as an Intern: Creating Vision at COTS

Posted on Aug 31, 2015 by

Written by Amelia Bemis

I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin and came to Appleton to attend Lawrence University in 2012. I started out as a music major, but realized that I didn’t want to pursue music as a career. After that, I ended up taking a few psychology classes and really loved it. I think my love of psychology stemmed from having a history of mental illness in my family.

I learned about COTS through a recommendation to take a tour of the facilities during a resume builder at Lawrence University. I thought the program was fascinating and very helpful, so I contacted COTS and ended up receiving an internship.

I loved interning at COTS. I met a lot of great people and learned a lot. My internship involved talking with residents, working on documents and running errands. I learned to appreciate every person for who they are. I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a bad person, and this internship really drove that home for me. Meeting everyone and hearing their stories was truly inspirational. It also drove home the point that, even if you are struggling, there is truly help available and there will always be someone there to try and pick you back up.


unnamed (3)My favorite experience 
from the internship was teaching a vision board life skills class to residents. I truly believe that thinking positively andvisualizing good things for oneself can change the direction a person’s life is going. I thought that it would be interesting to give people another way of thinking about things. Instead of just jumping to the easy thought process, which would be to think about things in a negative manner, maybe they could try something a little harder and think about most things in life positively.

Now that I have completed my internship at COTS, my plan is to graduate from Lawrence University in June of 2016 with an undergraduate degree in Psychology.  I also hope to eventually go to grad school and move out to the west coast.
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