By Allison Anderson
Hello everyone! I’m Allison Anderson.
I am spending the summer interning for the UMKC Women’s Center. I just finished my first year of graduate school at Mizzou. By this time next year, I will have my Master’s of Public Affairs. With this degree I hope to manage or run a nonprofit. I actually did my undergrad degree at Park University, so I wanted to come back to Kansas City. I chose UMKC because I have spent some time here before and always enjoyed it; plus, I have some close friends that just graduated and never had a bad thing to say.
Being a graduate student, research and data collection are something that I spend a lot of time doing. At the Truman School (my master’s program), we get to pick a policy area we are interested in, and that is what we do our research on. At first I wanted to look at sex education in high school, but as I got into it, I realized that researching rape on campus and sexual violence were some things I was much more passionate about. At Mizzou I am a peer educator fort the RSVP center (Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention). When thinking of where I wanted to intern, I knew I wanted something similar to being a peer educator, especially, something that would allow me to spread awareness of social issues. The Women’s Center at UMKC was a very easy choice for me. Not only will I be able to continue my research on sexual violence, but I will also be learning about other issues that affect women.
I have a lot of goals this summer, but the first is to learn as much as I can. I also want to be creative and think of some programs in areas that I may be new to. I am looking forward to all the events and assignments I will be working with, and honestly, looking forward to helping as many women and students as I can.