Meet Donna: Youth and community development

I chose the family's science major because I wanted to work more with families. I wanted to be more in the community. So this major was solely the focus of having that connection with the community, being able to be of service to the community and be more involved in the community with families and youth or young adults.

My experience has been really good. Specifically because I have learned more of how to work with families of different backgrounds and cultures. Also understanding how to work with families and being able to to just understand where they might be coming from.

I chose the criminal justice minor because I was trying to go into understanding more of the youth part of it, which is why I'm here at the juvenile center. And I wanted to work with youth in a different setting, which most people did not hear about, which is the juvenile part of it. And I figured criminal justice was something that I can work with.

My experience with faculty has been really good. I would say I've gotten a lot of help when I needed it. I've gotten a lot of good advice from my professors, my advisor, and it has been really, really helpful because even for my criminal justice minor, I had to talk to my advisor and she referred me to the Criminal Justice Department where I had to understand what I was getting into.

I chose Western because I have friends that have went here and WMU had put out the youth and community development major just before I started.

Two of my professors that I had last year really helped me get my internship, they were some of my references because I had developed connections with them.

I would say very, very interested in making it my career because when I applied for my internship, I had no idea rehabilitation was this big part of the juvenile center. And when I started learning about it, that's when I decided to do my internships here. And my experience has been really good, I can see the impact that we have on youth.

I would recommend Western to other people because of the experience that I've had. Being able to get the help when I needed it and the access to my advisor whenever I them. I would recommend the program because it has beenreally, really good and had my classmates have been supportive. Having professors that are supportive, that would be something that I know a lot of student need it. I would definitely recommend for that reason.