I had the sincere pleasure to be able to work with Betsy and the astounding team that I worked with at Real Kids Real Foods (RKRF) and Eat to Thrive (ETT) during the fall of 2021. From this particular experience that I had in the fall, I learned valuable skills such as gaining personal connections with students and participants of the RKRF program and also valuable skills such as planning lessons, technological skills such as uploading videos on Youtube, and learning how to record and save zoom recordings and also writing skills such as writing emails that inspired the kids and parents to come to the weekly meetings at Real Kids Real Foods. This internship was definitely challenging at the first to get the hang of things, but once I figured out how to effectively time manage with all the objectives and goals of uploading videos and preparing videos for the kids at RKRF, I started to actually enjoy the process of teaching kids as it was a great experience to interact with the kids as I always had an interest in the teaching field. I got to learn what specific materials and activities that kids typically prefer. Some examples of these making the food demonstrations, doing the physical activity, and also creating slides such as the homework activity as an activity that the kids could do at home by themselves. I also gained additional knowledge on nutrition and how to eat on a vegan diet. With Eat to Thrive, I learned what specific foods are good and valued in nutrition for my body. I also learned what actual Real Foods and Processed Foods are, which changed my daily diet I what types of foods that I typically ate. For instance, before this internship, I was eating a lot of processed foods such as hamburgers, fries, and soda. On the other hand, once I learned that these types of processed foods are, I started eating more real foods such as fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, strawberries, and eating guacamole that is freshly made from fresh avocados. From this piece of information that I gained, I learned that dining hall food is not nutritious or healthy to eat. Based on the recommendations from what I learned from Betsy, and what I gained from Real Kids and Real Foods, it made me initially question my dining supervisors at Boston University what food choices we had to serve to our college students. This internship gave me so much knowledge and additional technical skills that will help my future career in public health. At the beginning of this internship, I was not good with my time management skills as at first it took a lot of time to develop my lesson plan my slides. With time and effort, I worked on my time management skills and communication skills and developed my skill in technology, and improved them by learning from my co-interns Maunika and Emma such as the website Canva and creating creative presentations on Google Slides. Betsy allowed me to grow not only as an intern but also as a person that will try to make a difference in the public health sector. I recommend any college student to use this internship to work with Betsy since she is very passionate about eating nutritious foods and also is very kind and keeps inspiring her interns to do their ultimate best work. I recommend this internship to anyone who is interested in the field of nutrition and has a passion for teaching kids as this internship is a good development for me and every other intern who aspires to have a career in the medical field.
Jason Jang
