In high school, I started with an interest in the medical field from the start of my high school experience. I went to Early College High School, which was a program school that allowed for dual enrollment courses to be taken with Horry Georgetown Technical College. I was surrounded by a diverse group of peers, with some striving for professions of higher education while others wanted to graduate with an associate’s degree and their high school diploma and be finished. I knew that my focus would be in higher education due to my pursuit of knowledge relating to psychology and medical sciences. I first wanted to delve into the career path of cognitive therapy within high school, but I also noticed my interest in classes such as biology and chemistry. I craved to find a happy medium where I can help people through mental health but implement biomedical techniques within their treatment. This put me into focus on pursuing psychiatry since there is a medical component to help patients with mental disorders as well as providing resources for therapy alongside their medication. I also knew that my focus would be on underserved populations when I go further into the medical field due to my previous history of seeing many people go unnoticed for their mental health issues, such as those who have home insecurity.

 

There was little involvement within my high school experience of clubs and extracurriculars due to Early College’s tight scheduling for their students. I joined the Recycling Team for one day, but I was not able to get the transportation needed, and I discontinued from the club (which broke my heart). I promised myself that when I entered college, I would delve into the community as much as I could.

 

Within my first two years at the University, I focused mostly on getting accustomed to campus life and growing connections to the Opportunity Scholars Program I joined. This program is for first-generation students who have not had their parents attend college or university. Most of the students within this program come from underrepresented communities with high academic achievement, so it made me feel welcomed to learn all about how to navigate class, campus resources, and organizations. With my mentor’s help within the program, I learned about the website Handshake, which is a great tool to view work opportunities. Within my first year, I quickly got a work-study position as a peer counselor within the Psychology Department of Advising. I also became an OSP Mentor in my second year to help teach other first-generation students how to access campus resources to their advantage.

 

This experience helped me build momentum within the Psychology major as I learned about the different courses available for me to take within my third year. The PSYC 489 - Community Practicum Course was an option to fulfill my research experience within the curriculum. This course was a mixture of learning about homeless populations within Columbia, the resources available to them, and what methods were best to help homeless populations with providing support and sustainability. This class was led by Professor Bret Kloos, an amazing professor with much knowledge on building community resources within homeless populations. He also focuses on recovery from severe mental illness within these populations and how they can gather the mental health resources needed. The class also required service experience within the Columbia area to assist in underserved populations.

 

The two places I decided to volunteer at were Harvest Hope and Transitions Homeless Shelter. Here are the responsibilities listed for each of the experiences:

 

Harvest Hope

• Supplied groceries and necessities to local populations.
• Directed outside traffic at Harvest Hope to make sure cars and families got their groceries efficiently.
• Built an understanding of the community and local struggles, such as families that have children who need more assistance and areas more affected by price gouging in grocery stores.
• Collaborated with other volunteers and students to ensure people needing assistance were cared for.

Transitions Shelter

• Provided fresh meals in a homeless shelter in the mornings and evenings to older women and men.
• Understanding dietary restrictions within populations to ensure the best health and safety outcomes.
• Learning about the resource hub homeless shelters can become.
• Connecting how homeless shelters can become a great place to ensure transportation to health clinics and mental health clinics

 

These experiences were very stunning to gather new connections with volunteers and community members alike. Volunteering within these different locations showed me that there is a need for more resources for populations that do not have the means for transportation. For example, when at Harvest Hope, many people would come in from the bus station and walk down to gather their groceries for the week. They would have to carry their heavy load to the bus stop, wait for the bus, and then go to their next location. When talking to some of the bus riders coming to the pantry, I asked if they had a place to store their refrigerated food. It wasn’t surprising to hear that they didn’t and would have to eat most of it before it went bad.

 

At the end of the semester, I completed a presentation focusing on mental health resources across Columbia and South Carolina’s Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH). This program provides clinical outreach and assistance for homeless populations across Columbia. They have been able to assist with 50% of the Columbia area, which is an amazing number to help those homeless with mental health issues that might not have a primary therapist or doctor. Different programs within the South Carolina area can be donated to for services such as counseling and behavioral medicine, free adult primary care services, and free pediatric primary care services. Cooperative Health specifically works with Transitions to provide health care services without charge to homeless populations who have access to a shelter. I was able to present this presentation for the Active Minds Club I was involved with. This organization focuses on mental health awareness, so this presentation was able to connect mental health awareness for populations who don’t have access to address their mental health as readily.

 

Within the second semester of my third year, Professor Kloos offered me an opportunity to work as an undergraduate research assistant for the Homeless Court Lab. This Lab is focused on data collection on homeless courts, which are specific courts in Columbia that reduce charges on homeless populations. This is done through program classes that the participant joins frequently to change the outcome of their charges. Our lab used this data alongside demographic information, housing information, and previous history to correlate different outcomes. Each person was able to create a Discover USC project with this data. I decided to look at the impacts of race and gender on the number of criminal charges on a sample size of 73 people to test these variables. I worked alongside my peers, a graduate student named Dylan Wong, and Dr. Kloos to create an ANOVA statistical test on two hypotheses:

 

1. Homeless men will be more likely to have five or more charges compared to Homeless women and other gender populations in the homeless court.
2. Minority groups such as Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders will be more likely to have five or more charges on their record compared to White homeless individuals.

 

I was able to find a statistical significance in gender, as men were more likely to have more charges. There was no statistical significance when looking at racial disparities. This was able to highlight that homeless men may be more prone to criminal charges due to being single and having a higher rate of staying on the streets compared to women staying in cars with families.

 

Within my fourth year, I wanted to take the knowledge of vulnerable populations not having access to health care and ensure that mental health can be a priority with mobile facilities. This can be done at homeless courts, food pantries, shelter locations, and more spots that focus on homeless care. There aren’t enough mental health clinics to help homeless populations receive the mental health care they need.