About Sharon

Hometown:
La Canada, California

University Partner:
Harvard College

Degree:
Sociology

Grant Partner:
Facing History and Ourselves

Senior Mentor:
Dennis Barr, Director of Program Evaluation and Anna Romer, Associate Director of Program Evaluation

"Steamboat is an experience that helps you explore your academic interests through the internships, challenges what your life philosophy is through the Leadership dinners, and gives you sources for inspiration through the Foundation dinners."

Scholar Background

From a young age, Sharon has been passionate about justice and how it should be advocated for in order to bring about equality of opportunity. During her freshman summer, Sharon interned with Teach For America (TFA) to evaluate the resources and curriculum TFA corps members use for their inner city students. Inspired by TFA’s mission to break the cycle of educational inequality, Sharon began to search for solutions to many of the rampant social problems affecting the quality of life of individuals living in America’s inner cities. She later spent time as a Resource Advocate for the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter looking for ways to address social needs. She has also worked as a Law Clerk intern at the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice with the Family Law Unit exploring how legal services can help protect the rights and basic safety of families and young mothers. Through coursework in her Sociology concentration at Harvard, Sharon has also discovered that social needs can be met with entrepreneurial approaches and the application of effective organizational management. Sharon is also actively involved with the Asian American Christian Fellowship and the Human Rights in North Korea at Harvard.

Internship Description

Sharon had the privilege of working with Dennis and Anna on the Evaluation team this summer at Facing History and Ourselves.  She invested most of her time on two data analysis projects, one on studying how a Race & Membership summer seminar impacted teacher self-efficacy and the second on determining what the educators’ experiences were like at the Facing History School in the 2010-2011 academic school year.  Sharon had the opportunity to engross herself with these two projects from start to finish, from the initial data analysis computations to the final report write-ups.  Her understanding of how teachers engage their students in civic and academic learning, through not just relevant resources but also by creating a safe and open classroom community, was deepened through her work with these projects.  She also learned the importance of professional development and the need for teachers to be supported and given deliberate pedagogical strategies to implement within their classrooms through her study of the Facing History social mission and methodology.  And finally, Sharon appreciated the chance to engage herself with Facing History content, through the intern summer seminars during which she critically thought about the moral fault lines in history and wrestled with topics of racism, anti-Semitism, genocide, and discrimination. 

Where are they now?

Sharon is currently finishing her senior year at Harvard College.