The Constructivist Resume 1 Running head: THE CONSTRUCTIVIST RESUME The Constructivist Resume: Promoting the Career Adaptability Of Graduate Students in Counseling Programs Mark B. Scholl East Carolina University Jason Cascone C.W. Post Campus/Long Island University Mark B. Scholl is Assistant Professor, Department of Counselor and Adult Education, 225A Ragsdale Building, East Carolina University (E-mail: schollm@ecu.edu). Jason Cascone is Director of Career Development & Recruitment, Professional Experience & Career Planning, Kumble Hall, Long Island University, C.W. Post Campus, 720 Northern Boulevard, Brookville, NY 11548 (E-mail: jason.cascone@liu.edu). Please send inquiries regarding this article to Mark B. Scholl at mark.scholl@liu.edu. The Constructivist Resume 2 Abstract The authors present the Constructivist Resume, an original approach developed to promote professional identity development and career adaptability (i.e., concern, curiosity, confidence, and control) in students completing graduate-level counselor training programs. The authors discuss underlying theories including Super’s (1990, 1996) Life Span, Life Space Theory, and Peavy’s (1998) SocioDynamic Model, and their applications to career counseling. They also provide a detailed case illustration, make practical recommendations, and note the advantages and limitations of the approach. The Constructivist Resume 3 The Constructivist Resume: Promoting the Career Adaptability Of Graduate Students in Counseling Programs The postmodern perspective views human knowing as a process of subjective meaning making in which knowledge is constructed by the individual. Constructivism, a relatively new theoretical counseling perspective, posits that individuals create meaning in their own lives. Savickas (1993) called for the increased development and application of constructivist approaches in career counseling to keep pace with contemporary society’s movement to a postmodern perspective. A clear indication of the profession’s affirmative response is reflected in the fact that today many career counseling textbooks include chapters devoted to constructivist approaches (e.g., Sharf, 2002; Zunker, 2006). In addition, there has been a recent increase in the development of constructivist career assessment techniques (Sharf, 2002), as well as, constructivist applications to the career counseling process (Brott, 2005). Despite the increased use of constructivist career applications during the past 15 years, some authors have also noted potential limitations to constructivist approaches (McMahon & Watson, 2008). For example, these approaches have been criticized for placing too much emphasis on imagination and too little on real life action (Reid, 2006). In addition, effective implementation of these approaches often requires personal qualities including openness and imagination on the parts of both the counselor and client (McMahon, 2006). Constructing Identities The need for openness and imagination on the part of clients is particularly apparent with regard to those constructivists advocating that clients apply postmodern principles to the task of designing their identities. By intentionally selecting and participating in identity construction experiences a person can potentially construct his or her identity. Peavy’s (1998) SocioDynamic The Constructivist Resume 4 Counseling Model views the self as a project that is perpetually being constructed by the individual. From the SocioDynamic perspective, a self that is complex and fluidly adapts to changing contextual demands represents an optimal level of functioning (Hansen, 2005). By contrast, Morgan (2000) described individuals who tell simple, brief, and incomplete autobiographical stories as having thin narratives. The current authors believe that thin narratives may in part be the product of a thin collection of accrued experiences and related social roles or selves. The graduate student who is nearing completion of her graduate studies, due to a relative lack of world of work experiences, is likely to possess a thin sense of her professional identity. Thin professional identities plausibly limit an individual’s ability to adopt a forward-looking, selfconfident stance during the transition from graduate school to professional employment. What is required during this challenging transition period is a constructivist approach that will promote the development of a more complete sense of identity. In other words, the individual needs a developmental approach that will thicken his or her professional identity. For this reason, the current authors describe and recommend the Constructivist Resume as not only a product, but also a process that potentially facilitates the development and implementation of a student’s professional identity. Super’s Exploration Stage and the Transitioning Process The most highly regarded developmental career theory, which also advocates the use of developmental counseling approaches, is Super’s Life Span, Life Space theory (Super 1990; Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). In his theory, Super employs the Archway Model to depict the interrelationships among several career determinants. The central concept in Super’s Archway Model is the concept of the self which encompasses a variety of self-concepts or life roles (e.g., citizen, student, and worker). During the Exploration Stage (ages 14 to 24 years), an individual develops a specific vocational preference, completes training corresponding to that vocational The Constructivist Resume 5 preference, and enters employment. As such, this stage represents a challenging transition period in three respects. First, the individual’s primary career concern shifts from a focus on acquiring professional knowledge and skills, to a focus on implementing his or her professional self-concept in the actual world of work. Second, a clearly articulated and complex worker self-concept becomes progressively more and more salient relative to the previously more salient student selfconcept. Last, students must face the challenge of meeting the expectations of employers who understandably prefer applicants with more work experience, and a clearer understanding of their professional identity, including their unique attributes. But how can career counselors promote a smoother transitioning process for graduate students? For additional insight into the type of developmental career intervention and counselor actions likely to benefit an individual during this transition, we now turn our attention to Savickas’ (2005) discussion of the career adaptability construct. Career Adaptability and Coping Attitudes Savickas (2005) described career adaptability as “denoting an individual’s readiness and resources for coping with current and imminent vocational development tasks, occupational transitions, and personal traumas” (pg. 51). Career adaptability includes four attitudes useful for coping with career transitions: concern, curiosity, confidence, and control. Savickas defined these attitudes and suggested how a counselor might facilitate their development. Career concern means that an individual has a future orientation and feels invested in thinking about and planning for the future. Appropriate counselor interventions should encourage the client to look ahead to imminent vocational tasks and transitions. Career curiosity denotes an inquisitive and exploratory attitude with regard to understanding how one’s self identity fits into the world of work. Career interventions promoting client curiosity include discussions of extrinsic and intrinsic motivations, practicing goal setting, and encouraging involvement in exploratory experiential activities. Career The Constructivist Resume 6 confidence refers to the individual’s anticipation of successful outcomes related to his or her intentional efforts. Counselor interventions promoting confidence include encouragement, affirmation of client strengths, role modeling, and active problem solving. Career control means that individuals feel capable of and responsible for constructing their careers. Counselor responses that promote the career client’s sense of control include encouragement, affirmation of client strengths, and modeling optimism with regard to career development outcomes. Statement of purpose Savickas (2005) noted that constructivist approaches (e.g., narrative storytelling) promoting career adaptability connect the past, present, and future. Examples of such approaches include time perspective workshops (Whan & Savickas, 1998) and writing future autobiographies (Maw, 1982). Such interventions increase futuristic goal-oriented thinking, link present actions to future goals, increase optimism, and promote career adaptability by heightening career concern (Savickas, 2005). Although resume writing, an exercise requiring deconstruction and reconstruction of career experiences (Grant & Johnston, 2006), promotes career concern and links the past and present, it is also limited in the extent to which it encourages clients to connect to their possible future identities. Moreover, the resume is a factual document consisting primarily of experiences and accomplishments that have been completed in the past or, in the case of one’s current employment, being performed in the present. Career counseling clients are commonly advised not to write about their future career goals, but to focus on matching their qualifications to the employer’s goals. The Constructivist Resume addresses this limitation by requiring participants to construct a future-oriented resume representing their past accomplishments, present activities, and who they would like to be five to seven years from now. Importantly, a student should never actually submit her constructivist resume to an employer. The Constructivist Resume 7 The present authors believe that the Constructivist Resume approach, which includes a foursession model, can assist students in developing a clearer, more complex sense of their professional identities, as well as, increase their levels of career adaptability. Finally, the authors incorporated elements including goal development and action planning to address the criticism that constructivist approaches too commonly fail to include action elements (Reid, 2006). These action components were included to facilitate implementation of the student’s articulated professional identity. Counseling Process Constructivist Resume and Card Sort. Prior to composing the constructivist resume, the participant engages in a card sort activity. The card sort was developed in order to facilitate a change-generating process that has been described as “promoting personal reconstruction” (Schultheiss, 2005; pg. 383). The items included in the card sort were generated by the authors through a process combining brainstorming with reviewing the literature to select 84 descriptors (see Appendix 1) representing a wide range of functions (Chata & Loesch, 2007), values (Super & Neville, 1985), counseling theories, issues, and work settings that could contribute to the reconstruction of a counseling student’s sense of professional identity. In the first session of the four-session model, the counselor facilitates the card sort and the resume construction using the following procedure. First, the counselor asks the client to sort the 84 cards into three piles representing those descriptors that are relevant, irrelevant, and uncertain with regard to her professional identity. The counselor then initiates a discussion of the client’s rationale for assigning specific cards into each category. Next, the counselor asks the client to subdivide the relevant pile into subpiles based on themes of her own choosing, and once this is accomplished initiates a discussion of the themes inherent in the subpiles. The counselor informs the client that it is important that she imprint her own unique personal meanings onto these The Constructivist Resume 8 subpiles. The current authors recommend using a model constructivist resume (see Appendix 2) to demonstrate how the resume content may be derived from the card sort process (see Session One in the Case Illustration). Last, the counselor asks the client to create a future-oriented constructivist resume for the next session. In addition to conventional resume headings (e.g., Education, Experience, Skills), the current authors recommend encouraging clients to use unconventional resume headings reflecting their unique meaning making processes. For example, past clients have adopted headings such as “Learning and Self-actualizing,” “Risks Taken,” “Giving Back to the World,” “Networking Activities,” and “Accomplishment of Ideal Lifestyle.” The resume should be postdated five to seven years forward from the current date and this date should be included in the resume title (e.g., “Constructivist Resume for Melissa Smith – 2013”). The card sort and resume construction process, like career adaptability, is forward-looking. The card sort facilitates the student’s increased understanding, and articulation of her preferred future professional identity. The constructivist resume is a visual representation of the student’s past experiences, present activities, and self-identified goals for the future. This visual representation potentially compels the student to strive to integrate the past, present, and future aspects into a unified sense of self. The student is likely to feel compelled to transform possibilities and potentials into real achievements and skills. Thus, a unique contribution of this technique is that it facilitates the construction of a preferred future identity, and yields a product that motivates the student to actively seek out opportunities for actualizing this identity. Four-Session Counseling Model. Peavy’s (1998) SocioDynamic Model described a counseling approach in which the counselor encouraged the client to engage in meaningful activities in order to build a stronger sense of self. Along the same lines, our recommended foursession model incorporates goal setting and interview skills practice as action-oriented components augmenting the constructivist counseling process. The four 50-minute sessions The Constructivist Resume 9 include: (1) Session 1 – The Card Sort; (2) Session 2 – The Constructivist Resume Review; (3) Session 3 – Co-constructing Action Plans and Goals; (4) Session 4 – Describing One’s Professional Identity. Each of these sessions is described in further detail in the case illustration that follows. Case Illustration The second author has been a career counselor for 10 years and is the Director of Career Development at a mid-size liberal arts university in the northeast United States. His work with the following client (who will be referred to by the pseudonym, “Melissa”) illustrates the authors’ recommended four-session model using the Constructivist Resume to promote career development. Client Description Melissa is a 21-year-old student earning her Master’s of Science Degree in School Counseling. She has completed one year of a two-year program including a 100-hour field experience. She reports being certain of her choice to become a school counselor. Melissa’s motivation to participate in this process is to learn more about how to understand and describe her role as a school counselor to better prepare for employment interviews, and for her career. The Four Counseling Sessions Session 1: The Card Sort. While working with Melissa, the counselor found that the collaborative card sort procedure contributed to the development of rapport. Two of the counselor’s primary goals during this first session were to use clarifying questions to understand how the client subjectively perceived the concepts on the cards, and to assess whether relevant card choices were based on internal or external motivations. The counselor should also reflect the client’s strengths, and take notes on strengths that can be discussed in later sessions when the client’s professional identity is being co-constructed. The Constructivist Resume 10 Melissa appeared to sort the 84 cards into relevant, irrelevant, and uncertain piles fairly easily. One of her relevant subpiles contained four cards with the following descriptors: At-risk youth, Interpersonal skills counseling, Art therapy, and Animal-assisted therapy. With regard to her meaning-making process, Melissa explained that she believes that interpersonal skills counseling, art therapy, and animal-assisted therapy were three approaches that could be used to help at-risk youth become more socially responsible, respectful, and empathic. As is typical, at the end of the first session, the counselor gave Melissa the homework assignment of composing a constructivist resume. One can observe how the meaningful connections she made during this portion of the card sort are reflected in the first work experience described in Melissa’s constructivist resume (see Appendix 2). With the exception of its futuristic nature, the content of Melissa’s resume may not appear to be different from the content appearing in a conventional resume. However, the content reflects a process in which Melissa used the card sort to deconstruct and reconstruct her professional identity. Although this technique may sometimes result in a product that appears to be creative, this is not the purpose of the technique. The primary contribution of the Constructivist Resume is that it facilitates an authentic process of selfdiscovery. Session 2: The Constructivist Resume Review. In session two, the three primary goals of the counselor include: (1) reviewing the constructivist resume, (2) reflecting and affirming the student’s positive outcome expectations, and (3) beginning to facilitate the co-construction of the client’s professional identity. In reviewing Melissa’s constructivist resume (see Appendix 2), the counselor and client discovered that her identity as a school counselor was based primarily on practical experiences rather than on specific skills and qualities. The counselor informed Melissa that employers look for candidates that can describe themselves in terms of, not just the experiences that they have had, but also in terms of the unique skills and qualities they possess. In The Constructivist Resume 11 order to succeed in employment interviews, Melissa needed to improve her ability to identify and verbalize her strengths. The counselor facilitated Melissa’s identification of two positive outcome expectations: (1) gaining experiences that she believes will help others perceive her as a qualified school counselor and (2) the attainment of a position as a school counselor. As to the former outcome, she mentioned that one experience that she has planned is a volunteer opportunity for a summer camp for children diagnosed with cancer. When asked to describe the unique strengths that she envisioned for herself as a school counselor she stated that she wanted to be “available, consistent, and proactive” on behalf of students who are uncertain as to “what they want to do, and how they want to get there, and where their place is”. Toward the end of the session, Melissa stated, “The constructivist resume got me in the future idea. This is great on paper, but how do you get from A to Z? There has got to be something in the middle that gets you there.” These statements indicate that the Constructivist Resume promoted Melissa’s level of career concern. Session 3: Co-constructing Action Plans and Goals. In the third session, the primary goal of the counselor is to help the client develop goals and action steps that will help to bridge the gap between her current identity and her preferred future identity. The counselor also attempts to develop the client’s levels of concern and commitment vis-à-vis these goals and actions. In composing her constructivist resume, Melissa sought to identify experiences that would make her a more seasoned counselor. Melissa’s constructivist resume included a reference to her interest in becoming more proficient in the practice of art therapy. Together the counselor and client brainstormed ideas for learning more about this specialization area. In this same vein, the counselor arranged an informational interview with a professional art therapist, and suggested group memberships and The Constructivist Resume 12 volunteer experiences that would be useful for gaining exposure to art therapy. Toward the end of the session, the counselor discovered that Melissa had never participated in a formal employment interview. He had observed that Melissa found it difficult to talk about herself in terms of her unique qualities. He asked her to prepare for the next session by developing verbal responses to typical interview questions such as “Tell me about yourself,” and “What unique contribution can you make to our counseling office?” Such questions require an applicant to provide rich and meaningful descriptions of his or her unique professional identity. Session 4: Describing One’s Professional Identity. The two primary goals of the fourth session include facilitating the client’s increased awareness of her emerging sense of professional identity, and an increased understanding of how this awareness is related to tasks necessary for obtaining employment. Through the facilitation of these two goals, the counselor promotes the client’s sense of control and confidence. Early in the session, Melissa attempted to present her response to, “Tell me about yourself.” Although she was given a homework assignment to prepare a statement, she struggled and relied on a chronological account of the places she had lived and her varied work experiences, rather than providing a more concise description of her unique qualities. At this point, the counselor and client co-constructed a written description of Melissa’s desired professional identity incorporating information from the constructivist resume. The counselor also encouraged her to use first-person statements when answering the question. Following this co-construction process, Melissa gave the following verbal response to the counselor’s “Tell me about yourself” prompt: …I feel very strongly about helping children and I really think it is important to have that person in every child’s life. My experience in both living in different areas, and my degree have made it possible for me to have that perspective and be that [important person] for a child. I am very empathetic and approachable, especially because of my age… they The Constructivist Resume 13 [students] tend to open up in different areas of their life that I don’t see them necessarily opening up as much to the older counselors. I am motivated. I know what I want to do and I have known for years. In terms of my goals, there are so many things that I want to do… that will be really beneficial…like using pet therapy and using art as a medium, and sports for some children, and social skills training for others and incorporating their parents a little bit more in their lives. It is something that you have to adapt to every child and it is something that I think I am really good at and I can pick out where a child needs something and what we can do to make that one thing better. It is very important to me. The counselor and client had collaboratively co-constructed a clearer, more complete and thicker description of Melissa’s professional identity. Melissa’s verbal response was smooth without much overt anxiety. Melissa felt a strong sense of ownership and said the statement “sounded more like me” than her previous attempts. The counselor praised the client’s presentation for being concise, engaging, and the kind of response school employers will be looking for during interviews. The session ended after a review of other typical interview questions, and a plan for future and continued preparation. Career Counseling Outcome Following the conclusion of the four sessions, Melissa was asked to provide written responses to a set of questions designed to assess whether the approach had enhanced her career adaptability, and her professional identity development. An additional question gave her the opportunity to provide her general impressions of the approach, including recommendations for improvement. Overall, Melissa’s responses to these questions indicated that the constructivist resume model had been successful in promoting her career development. With regard to increased understanding of her professional identity, Melissa asserted that “this approach helped me to understand a lot of the areas of counseling that I am truly interested in,” and “[the counselor] The Constructivist Resume 14 helped me to develop a successful vocabulary” for verbalizing the “skills and qualities [that] set me apart from other counseling students.” In terms of her career concern she acknowledged that the counselor “helped me to realize that I can gain experience and do many things even prior to having a job” and that “the process as a whole helped to solidify that my schooling is in fact winding down and soon enough I will be looking for a job.” With regard to her sense of confidence and control, she wrote, “This process has increased my confidence because I understand how to use my qualities and skills in order to make myself more marketable to a potential school district.” In response to the final question assessing her overall impressions she indicated the approach had fostered her curiosity: “The items on the card sort helped me think of new ideas and new connections.” In addition, she wrote: “Overall, I feel this approach has been extremely successful in preparing me for the transition from being a student to becoming a professional.” Finally, she thought that the approach would have been more helpful if the sessions had occurred in the final semester of her Master’s program. Discussion Recommendations for Career Counselors Successful implementation of this approach depends upon several factors. First, the maturity and career development level of the student should be assessed in the first session. Some students may require more than four sessions to complete the process as the counselor and student work more extensively in processing the constructivist resume, or with the self-discovery and construction process. Second, as pointed out by the client, it may be advantageous to introduce this intervention during the student’s final semester. Melissa felt that the material would have been fresher in her mind as she engaged in her interviews. On the other hand, depending on the student, he or she might appreciate the extra time to continue to explore his or her identity and continue to construct his or her identity after the four sessions are completed. Finally, the counselor may need The Constructivist Resume 15 to spend additional time processing deeper issues related to the identity construction process such as lack of confidence, conflicts with significant others regarding the student’s career choice, and anxiety related to transitioning to the world of work, to name only a few. Advantages, Limitations, and Recommendations for Research A primary advantage of the Constructivist Resume is that it is a collaborative approach which fosters the client’s sense of confidence and a strong working alliance. An advantage of the card sort is that it is a here-and-now experiential activity that promotes curiosity and concern by requiring the individual to select identity-relevant descriptors. The act of composing the constructivist resume encourages the client to become an active agent in constructing his or her career, and as a result this approach promotes the individual’s sense of control and confidence. Finally, the four-session model incorporates action-oriented elements (e.g., interview skills practice) that enhance feelings of confidence and increase the likelihood that clients will achieve the goals that are co-constructed. However, this approach also requires the counselor and client to possess qualities including openness and imagination. The success of this approach is likely to be limited if either the counselor or client is not open to experiences requiring imaginative exploration. The current authors recommend that future research include the utilization of quantitative assessments to examine the extent to which participation in the four-session model influences participants’ professional identity development, as well as, their levels of career adaptability including concern, curiosity, confidence, and control. For example, researchers might employ the Career Futures Inventory (CFI; Rottinghaus, Day, & Borgen, 2005) which includes three subscales that assess Career Adaptability, Career Optimism, and Perceived Knowledge. Another potentially useful measure is the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI; Heppner, 1988) which consists of three subscales that assess Problem-Solving Confidence, Approach-Avoidance Style, and Personal The Constructivist Resume 16 Control. Finally, we also encourage counselors and educators to develop card sorts that may be applied to counseling students in other professional fields. Conclusion We have presented an original counseling approach which potentially promotes career adaptability in students completing their professional degrees. Graduate students may present to career services with varying levels of development with regard to the clarity of their unique professional identities. They possess professional identities ranging from simple, incomplete, and vague to multifaceted, full, and clearly understood. Those students with developmental levels corresponding to a fuller, richer self-identity are more likely to benefit from traditional career counseling approaches. The Constructivist Resume approach will enable career counselors to assist a wider range of students, along the identity development continuum, with the challenging school-to-work transition. The Constructivist Resume 17 References Brott, P. E. (2005). A constructivist look at life roles. The Career Development Quarterly, 54, 138-149. Chata, C. C., & Loesch, L. C. (2007). Future school principals’ views of the roles of professional school counselors. Professional School Counseling, 11, 35-41. Grant & Johnston (2006). Career narratives. In M. McMahon & W. Patton (Eds.), Career counselling: Constructivist approaches (pp. 110-122). New York, NY: Routledge. Hansen, J. T. (2005). 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Career counseling: A holistic approach. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole. 19 The Constructivist Resume Appendix 1: 84 Card Sort Items Academic advising Achievement Administrative duties Advancement opportunities Adventure-based counseling Affiliate with luminaries in my profession Altruism Animal assisted therapy At-risk youth Authority – leading and supervising others Behavior therapy Career counseling Career testing Classroom guidance Classroom instruction Cognitive behavioral therapy Conducting action research Constructivist counseling Consulting with administrators Consulting with parents Coordinating community services Coordinating intervention services Coordinating SAT, ACT benchmarks Coordinating student groups, clubs, assemblies Counsel victims of violence Counseling adolescents Counseling adults Counseling older adults Counseling children Counseling members of diverse populations Counseling those with suicidal thoughts Creativity Crisis counseling Cultural identity Disciplining students Economic rewards Existential therapy Family therapy Fully utilizing my knowledge and skills Gestalt therapy Grant writing Grief counseling Have one or more outstanding mentors Help clients with adjustment disorders Help clients with autism or other developmental disorders Help clients with depression or mood disorders Help clients with personality disorders Help clients with schizophrenia or psychoses Incorporating the arts into my work Individual counseling Intelligence testing Interpersonal skills counseling Lifestyle Managerial leadership Marketing services to potential clientele Making commitment referrals Marital therapy Mentoring Networking Participate in professional organizations Person centered therapy Personal development Personality assessment Physical activity Physical prowess Presenting at conferences Prestige – desire for status Private practice Program leader Providing outreach services Psychoanalytic therapy Psychodrama Reality therapy Recognition Reporting child and domestic abuse Risk Sexual abuse counseling Small group counseling Social activity Student registration Use of technology Using play therapy Variety of types of activities Working conditions 20 The Constructivist Resume 21 Appendix 2: Melissa Smith’s Constructivist Resume (2013) OBJECTIVE: To develop the skills, education, and resources necessary to become a qualified, productive school counselor. EDUCATION: Liberal Arts University – Hometown, USA Master of Science, School Counseling, May 2009 State University – Small Town, USA Bachelor of the Arts, Dean’s List, Psychology and Sociology Major, May 2007 EXPERIENCE: Perfect Middle School – Carlsbad, California School Counselor, August 2009 to present Facilitated group counseling sessions for social skills training, bereavement, divorce, eating disorders, bullying, and stress reduction within the middle school Implemented a pilot stress-reduction workshop and coordinated with a local animal shelter to provide animal-assisted therapy Founded an art-therapy after-school club designed to help children cope with various stressors during adolescence Local High School – Hometown, USA School Counseling Internship, Fall 2008 to Spring 2009 Prepared and taught lessons to 9-12 grade students on career opportunities and college preparation Facilitated group counseling sessions for social skills training, bereavement, divorce, and eating disorders within the High School Local Middle School – Hometown, USA School Counseling Practicum, Spring 2008 Assisted in the counseling, instructing, and scheduling of students Facilitated the development of students’ group leadership skills through “Don’t Laugh At Me” training and instruction CREATIVE ENDEAVORS: Create a support and social skills training group for children with autism spectrum disorders. Create a basic counseling skills training group composed of peer-elected student representatives. VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE: Sunrise Day Camp – Hometown, USA Counseling Volunteer, Summer 2008 & Summer 2009 Provided counseling and support for young children suffering from cancer.