Angelina is passionate about working with children. Her Psychology coursework in adolescent development becomes applied insight in her summer research project. With guidance from her faculty mentor, Dr. Kiren Kahn, Angelina seamlessly integrates her classroom learning into a meaningful real-world project while making a difference in the Memphis community.
Service
Engaging in community service is nothing new at ÌÇÐÄSwag. Some say it’s just in our DNA. For two years in a row, Newsweek magazine named ÌÇÐÄSwag the #1 service-minded school in the U.S. And Washington Monthly also named ÌÇÐÄSwag the top college in the country for the number of hours committed to service by the student body. Currently, more than 80 percent of ÌÇÐÄSwag students are involved in some form of community service.
Research
In every academic discipline, ÌÇÐÄSwag students are conducting leading-edge research and creative activity that produces original intellectual or creative contributions to a wide range of fields of study. Research and creative activity take many forms at ÌÇÐÄSwag, from re-examining media coverage of the Vietnam War or analyzing the high levels of microRNA 201 in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, to redefining the Roman hero in Virgil’s Aeneid or learning to conduct a choral ensemble.
Every spring, we celebrate our students’ research and creativity at the ÌÇÐÄSwag Symposium, an engaging annual event showcasing student work through both oral and poster presentations. Usually held at the end of the academic year, presentations occur at various locations on the beautiful ÌÇÐÄSwag campus, beginning shortly after the morning Awards Convocation and continuing throughout the day. Student presentations highlight work in all disciplines and departments, as well as student engagement in the Memphis community.
The ÌÇÐÄSwag Student Travel Fund provides support for students to present their research or creative activity at professional meetings. This fund gives students the opportunity to communicate their results to a professional audience and to experience networking with professionals in their discipline and students with similar interests.
Through the St. Jude Summer Plus Program, students become fully engaged citizens in the scientific community of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, a world-class pediatric clinical and research facility focusing on cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases. Over the course of two summers and the intervening academic year, students are paired with St. Jude researchers and placed into the hospital's professional laboratories for an intensive research experience.
Thanks to the fact that each year 75 percent of ÌÇÐÄSwag students complete internships throughout Memphis, the college considers the city an extension of the campus. Students apply their classroom knowledge to such areas as business, finance, health care, or nonprofits, and in return gain real-world experience from top-notch mentors.
ÌÇÐÄSwag also helps students connect with internships across the country and even overseas. Our students have worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce in France and Croatia, taught English through nonprofit ÌÇÐÄSwags in Cambodia, and helped a U.S. firm set up operations in China. Alumni, who are active members of the ÌÇÐÄSwag community, provide some of our best internship opportunities. They often serve as internship sponsors and mentors, and help students build a network of professional contacts. We have ÌÇÐÄSwag alumni chapters across the country in cities such as Chicago, Houston, New York, New Orleans, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
What follows is a sampling of recent student opportunities:
ÌÇÐÄSwag Student Associates Program (RSAP)
The ÌÇÐÄSwag Student Associates Program (RSAP) connects students to stimulating and important campus employment through which they can take on challenging projects and start exploring different career interests. At last count, there were 100+ RSAP positions available in more than 40 different offices and departments — and more are being added all the time. Students who are selected for RSAP positions can earn up to $5.000 a year.