If someone told me a year ago that I would have the post-graduate job I currently hold today, I would have probably laughed. I am a habilitation technician, which is essentially a fancy title for an aid that assists children and young adults with special needs.
Like many people, I grew up feeling a twinge uncomfortable in the presence of disabled individuals—not because I looked down upon or disliked them, but simply because I feared acting awkwardly or saying the wrong thing around them. When I applied for the job during my senior year of college, I figured it would be a glorified babysitting position; instead, I found myself facing one challenge after another: communication barriers (many autistic children are nonverbal), behavioral adversities (aggressive episodes where I was punched and kicked), and extremely slow progress in terms of skill development. But I learned that there is nothing like the feeling of achieving a long attempted goal with a client, and I developed indescribable and unique bonds with each client after months of hard work and therapeutic reinforcement. One of my clients, Sam, twisted off the cap of a water bottle for the first time this summer, and it felt as if we had just won an Olympic medal. …show more content…
While a semester abroad in college familiarized me with what an incredible experience traveling and attempting to assimilate into a foreign culture can be, I believe that volunteering with the Peace Corps will provide me with the opportunity to become an authentic member of a community instead of just a visitor, and I will be able to build lasting relationships while making a positive impact on the youth of yet another population foreign to
Like many people, I grew up feeling a twinge uncomfortable in the presence of disabled individuals—not because I looked down upon or disliked them, but simply because I feared acting awkwardly or saying the wrong thing around them. When I applied for the job during my senior year of college, I figured it would be a glorified babysitting position; instead, I found myself facing one challenge after another: communication barriers (many autistic children are nonverbal), behavioral adversities (aggressive episodes where I was punched and kicked), and extremely slow progress in terms of skill development. But I learned that there is nothing like the feeling of achieving a long attempted goal with a client, and I developed indescribable and unique bonds with each client after months of hard work and therapeutic reinforcement. One of my clients, Sam, twisted off the cap of a water bottle for the first time this summer, and it felt as if we had just won an Olympic medal. …show more content…
While a semester abroad in college familiarized me with what an incredible experience traveling and attempting to assimilate into a foreign culture can be, I believe that volunteering with the Peace Corps will provide me with the opportunity to become an authentic member of a community instead of just a visitor, and I will be able to build lasting relationships while making a positive impact on the youth of yet another population foreign to