How can a Binghamton student make a difference in the community? These internships offer a unique path

Binghamton University's Division of Health and Wellness Studies (HWS), as part of Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences, offers a range of internships that allow students to gain hands-on experience, build new skills and make an impact in the community.

Here's a closer look at those internships and how they've shaped students in unique ways.

Sports practicum

Ethan Mak '24 grew up loving sports, especially baseball. With that love came his fair share of game-related injuries. But as he built himself back up, he discovered a fascination with the mechanisms of how injuries occur and how exercise science could help players like him recover.

That's what drew him to the sports practicum internship, which allows undergraduates to work in local physical therapy clinics and gain the experience needed to pursue PT, sports medicine or related careers. It enables undergraduates to experience a clinical setting.

"I learned how being compassionate and knowledgeable is a great way to help influence the lives of others," says Mak, a biology major who completed the internship during the spring 2024 semester. "I wanted to help people get back out into the world."

Daniel Miller, a lecturer in HWS who oversees the internship and also teaches in Decker's public health division, says this course partners students with physical therapists who perform a range of work, from general PT to injuries involving student-athletes from area schools.

"Students get to see how knee injuries get treated, whether they're with somebody who is out of shape or an athlete," Miller says. "The main difference is that for athletes, you're going to see a higher level of compliance, of motivation, to recover and in many cases get stronger to perform again at a high level."

For Mak, who interned at Southern Tier Physical Therapy in Binghamton, a standout experience was listening to new patients discuss areas where they needed help.

"One of the best aspects of the internship was appreciating the value that comes with the more time you take to understand what's really bothering someone," Mak says.

Mindset Mentors

Health and Wellness Studies faculty Sarah Thompson, left, and Jennifer Wegmann oversee internships that bring students into the community for invaluable experiences. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen. When stress builds up, it's easy to let it enable the smallest of problems to snowball. That's especially true in a college setting, which is why the Mindset Mentors train interns to show fellow students how to cope with stress.

"Every student who gets accepted into the internship is coming in looking at stress mindsets and ways of changing views on stress," says Jennifer Wegmann '94, MA '01, PhD '18, a lecturer in HWS who leads the internship. "Our mission is about helping students harness the power of stress so they have the skills to be well their entire life."

Students apply what they learn through programs, classroom lectures or other campus activities.

For Laila Gedeon '24, a psychology major who was a Mindset Mentors intern during her sophomore year, stress proved a unique challenge as a student-athlete running track and field.

"There's so much research out there about mindfulness interventions in terms of regulating your stress cycle through things like yoga, meditation or thoughtful breathing, and that fascinated me because I have practiced them myself," Gedeon says.

As manager of the Mindset Mentors' social media accounts, she helped craft thought-provoking posts framed around themes such as "Mindfulness Mondays."

"I wanted to help inspire other people to deal with their stress effectively and not in a harmful way," Gedeon says.

Nutrition and fitness

Standing before a group of fourth-grade students in Binghamton, Kassandra McDonald encourages each of them to compliment themselves.

One by one, they raise their hands. One student says, "I know how to do a cartwheel!"

That's a cool fact, she replies, then takes it a step further: "Are you proud that you're the only one in your family who can do a cartwheel?"

Helping Binghamton-area elementary school children discover how to compliment themselves proved one of the most rewarding experiences for McDonald, a senior psychology major with a minor in HWS, during her spring 2024 nutrition and fitness internship.

Stress can change your mindset, or your mindset can be changed about stress.

Laila Gedeon '24

"What interests me most about nutrition is how food influences your mood," McDonald says. "A lot of people have a misconception that sweets and other 'comfort foods' will make them feel better, but really it's the more balanced foods - like whole grains and salmon - that have a greater ability to impact your brain health for the better."

The internship's individualized nature attracts students from academic programs ranging from psychology to neuroscience to human development.

"A lot of them are thinking about community and public health or marketing and promotion in some way in the health or wellness industry," says Sarah Thompson, MA '99, an HWS lecturer who oversees the internship. "It's a great opportunity for students from all different types of interests in terms of career paths, and we're able to tailor the experiences largely to what they would like to work on."

McDonald's internship focus was teaching about intuitive eating, which involves listening to one's hunger and fullness signals without restricting oneself.

"If you restrict yourself, then you're more likely to binge on foods," she says, "but you're less likely to do that if you just let yourself eat things like cake as you crave them and train yourself to stop when you're full."

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