Cincinnati Youth Collaborative

Sarah Dennis, Summer 2019

During the summer of 2019, I was brought onto the CYC (Cincinnati Youth Collaborative) team as an intern and held a variety of responsibilities, although I largely handled data organization/primary analysis. (CYC is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering meaningful mentoring relationships between local students and adult community members.) My initial goal was to analyze a set of pooled data for the CYC Med Mentors Program regarding cultural competency, and if the program (along with exposure via the medical education) was beneficial in helping medical students to become more culturally aware. Another main facet of my project was to create two informational workshops that discussed the college application process and employability skills. These 1-hour interactive workshops were given once during the summer season. Each session was attended by several local high school and college-age students that were participants of a Cincinnati summer youth employment program. These sessions helped me to connect with local students that I otherwise would not meet and provide them with guidance and resources to use when navigating through a particularly stressful time in their lives. Helping these students reminded me of the challenges I faced when applying for college and medical school, and allowed me to share some of the wisdom and advice that was passed along to me that made me successful in that endeavor, which hopefully would prove just as useful for these students.

I joined the CYC organization as a Med Mentor in 2018, which was an experience that gave me the initial exposure to CYC's goals and values and inspired me to further my involvement with them as their summer intern. This internship gave me the opportunity to learn more about the local residents that I hope to serve as a future physician and made me, an out-of-state resident, feel more at home in this community.

Download Sarah's poster (.pptx)