UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Maya Johnson, a fourth-year student within the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), spent Maymester in Washington, D.C., serving to highschool college students assume critically about racial justice. The experience was a part of the D.C. Social Justice Fellowship by way of the Penn State College of Education.
The fellowship is a two-semester program that mixes theoretical examine of regulation, training, public coverage and systemic inequities with hands-on educating experience in under-resourced colleges in Washington, D.C. Now in its fifth 12 months at Penn State, this system equips college students to combine rules of social justice into their chosen profession paths.
In the College of IST, Johnson is majoring in safety and threat evaluation with a focus in intelligence evaluation and modeling. She got here to Penn State with the intent to main in laptop science however modified course after finishing an internship doing laptop science-based analysis.
“I really enjoyed the experience but by the end of the summer realized that I felt a little disconnected from the work,” Johnson mentioned. “At the same time, through my involvement in Penn State’s Multicultural Engineering Program, I discovered that IST might be a better fit for me.”
Johnson’s introductory IST programs went past coding and allowed her to discover subjects like synthetic intelligence, expertise coverage and how expertise can form future legal guidelines and society.
“The security and risk analysis major gave me creative freedom and helped me see the bigger picture of how technology connects to real-world issues,” Johnson mentioned. “As a visual learner, being able to apply what I was learning made the work more engaging and meaningful.”
Johnson utilized for the Social Justice Fellowship after studying about it on social media and was accepted into this system. As a fellow, she took the D.C. Social Justice in Education course and realized about social justice subjects, lesson planning and the best way to develop a civic motion plan. She and the opposite fellows have been then positioned into educating teams primarily based on focus areas; Johnson’s group centered on racial justice.
“Our teaching group covered topics such as the school-to-prison pipeline, the racial wealth gap, data bias and over-policing, among other issues,” Johnson mentioned. “Our goal was to help students think about how these issues show up in society and connect to their own communities and futures.”
During the day in D.C., Johnson’s group taught at Dunbar High School and MacArthur High School. In the evenings, they took lessons at Georgetown Law for his or her Maymester credit score. They have been additionally answerable for creating their capstone tasks and connecting with stakeholders who helped them strengthen their concepts.
“It was a full schedule but also one of the most impactful experiences I’ve had at Penn State,” Johnson mentioned.
Johnson’s capstone analysis centered on racial and financial inequities in STEM training, particularly for highschool college students in traditionally under-resourced communities.
“This project matters because students should be able to see themselves as creators, problem-solvers, coders and future leaders in STEM,” Johnson mentioned. “By using video games and interactive learning, my goal was to make STEM feel more accessible, exciting and connected to students’ lives.”
Johnson mentioned she discovered inspiration from one in every of her personal educational experiences at Penn State.
“I took a video game-based astronomy course that makes science interactive and engaging,” she mentioned. “That class showed me how powerful game-based learning can be when it is used to teach complex STEM topics in a way that feels approachable and fun. I wanted to take inspiration from that model while also incorporating my own coding skills and background in technology.”
Johnson’s capstone introduced collectively all her educational experiences — laptop science, cybersecurity, safety and threat evaluation, coverage and social justice — and confirmed how intertwined STEM and social justice might be, she mentioned.
“This was about more than teaching students coding or technology skills,” she mentioned. “It was about showing them that they belong in STEM spaces and that technology can be used as a tool to create equity, opportunity and change.”
Johnson mentioned that educating within the D.C. space bolstered how necessary her capstone is.
“The demographics and needs of the schools that fellows work with show how necessary programs like this can be,” she mentioned. “Seeing students engage with our lessons, ask questions afterward and talk about their future plans has made me even more passionate about creating opportunities that help students feel seen and supported.”
The Social Justice Fellowship additionally knowledgeable and refined Johson’s profession objectives, she mentioned.
“I still want to work in cybersecurity, but this fellowship has reinforced how important social justice work is to me,” she mentioned. “It has shown me that I can combine my interests in technology, cybersecurity, education and equity and consider how I might give back through teaching, mentorship or community-based technology education in the future.”
Johnson mentioned the fellowship is one other instance of the alternatives Penn State gives to realize new views.
“This fellowship has allowed me to do work that is different from my major while still connecting to my larger goals,” she mentioned. “It has reminded me that social justice is not something we should only talk about in certain spaces. It is something that should be practiced every day.”