Summit Prep Internship

This junior internship wasn't just a résumé line—it was a return to a question I've carried for years: What should education feel like when it's truly working? I came to Summit Prep, a high school in the Bay Area, to work alongside Matt, my former 9th-grade Humanities teacher. After teaching at HTHM for one year, he had taken on a new role leading Summit's Expeditions program—a system where, every six weeks, students step outside the traditional classroom for two weeks to pursue off-campus internships or hands-on, interest-based workshops.

I reached out to Matt because he's one of the rare educators who sees students not just as learners, but as co-designers of the classroom. He was one of the first people who helped me see school differently. I didn't know exactly what I'd be doing—but I knew this was a chance to step into a new rhythm of life and learn something that couldn't be taught in a textbook.

At first, I imagined launching a visual storytelling project that amplified student and teacher voices. But after shadowing Matt and having a few candid hallway conversations, a different opportunity surfaced. Each morning, the school carved out an hour for "Mentor Time"—a space intended for connection, reflection, and relationship-building. In practice, though, it felt hollow. Students stared at phones, mentors typed quietly, and some didn't show up at all.

The reason? Pressure to prioritize instruction had gradually edged out space for human connection. And yet, what is instructional time without trust? What is school without belonging?

So I pivoted. My project became an inquiry: What could Mentor Time look like if we re-centered its purpose? I gathered data—surveys, interviews, quiet observations—and listened for patterns. I mapped insights, then designed a workshop to help teachers reflect not just on their practices, but on who they are as mentors. My first prompt was simple: "Who is someone who cares about your success, and how do they show it?" I wanted them to reconnect with that memory and carry it into their own mentorship. Because before we can teach well, we have to remember what it feels like to be seen.

Matt's feedback transformed my approach. I had designed my slides to explain everything. He nudged me to step back—let teachers discover insights for themselves. So I stripped away the bullet points, made space for silence, and trusted the process. I wasn't there to point out what wasn't working—I was there to hold up a mirror and invite new possibilities.

Beyond the workshop, I also built a one-pager to guide students through Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs), designed a Jamboard for mentor check-ins, and helped with graduation logistics—building the ceremony slideshow and scripting Google Apps to automate name and photo placement. Behind the scenes of that final day of high school, I got to contribute to a moment that marked the end of one story and the beginning of another.

What shaped me most, though, wasn't the project—it was the proximity to the real work. Shadowing Matt, I got a front-row seat to the unglamorous but essential tasks that keep a school running: scheduling community partnerships, reviewing discipline cases, responding to parent emails, coordinating off-campus programs, attending faculty meetings, and managing paperwork for hundreds of students. No two days looked the same. One moment, he was proctoring an AP exam; the next, negotiating contracts for next year's Expeditions.

Schools, I came to understand, are complex systems of moving parts—and administrators like Matt hold both the logistics and the vision. Our morning commutes were often the most illuminating. We talked about why High Tech High, where we first met, succeeded where others struggled. About how teacher autonomy and shared ownership created the conditions for real innovation. About how hard it is to scale quality.

I came to see clearly: the most meaningful structures in education are built on culture, not compliance. You can mandate curriculum—but you can't mandate care. That tension—between time and intention, between systems and people—ran through all my observations. Most teachers weren't resistant to mentoring; they were just overwhelmed. My goal wasn't to add more to their plates—it was to offer tools, clarity, and breathing room so that care could return to the center.

There's a larger thread I'm still following. Throughout the internship, I became attuned to how schools collect data—attendance, assessments, progress reports—and how often that data goes unused, buried in spreadsheets, inaccessible to the people who need it most. With the right systems, data could highlight where students are thriving, who's slipping through the cracks, and how to support the whole community. But only if that data is designed with empathy, embedded into daily practice, and used to empower rather than surveil.

That's the future I want to build toward—where technology doesn't burden educators but frees them, where software isn't just efficient, but humane.

This internship didn’t give me a final answer. Instead, it left me with sharper questions: What does it mean to belong to a school? How do we design for trust? How can we use tools—technological or otherwise—to deepen relationships instead of dilute them? It also reminded me that even in imperfect systems, there are people—like Matt—doing the quiet, patient work of care. And maybe, with the right questions and the right skills, I can be one of them.