Mia, College Track EPA Alumna, Reflects on Her 2025 NextGen Internship Experience

EAST PALO ALTO, CA (December 10, 2025) For Mia, a College Track East Palo Alto alumna and current College Thrive sophomore at Santa Clara University, internships are a chance to explore the versatility of her psychology major. This summer, through the NextGen Internship program, she worked with Canopy, a nonprofit organization that grows and cares for trees in the East Bay community. There, Mia combined her interests in nature and communication to deepen her understanding of psychology, the diversity of career options open to her within her industry, and the world around her.

Back in the summer of 2022, Mia worked with Canopy as a high school volunteer. “As a Teen Urban Forester, I worked with students from different high schools around East Palo Alto, doing community forestry, planting trees, pruning and taking care of trees, surveying the community, getting people involved, and making a difference.”

That experience “flipped a switch” within her, she said.

“I realized I was doing impactful work. At Canopy, my drive was to make a difference. It was meaningful to do something for your community, but through a different lens [nature]. I’m trying to be a trailblazer for other people to do much more.”

Three years later, now a college student, Mia intentionally chose to apply to Canopy through the NextGen Internship program in hopes of seeing the organization from a new perspective. She landed the role! As the Communications and Operations intern, Mia was strategic in developing social media content, created external resources/collateral to engage the community, provided photography for Canopy events, and ultimately learned how communications shapes impact.

“I loved everybody. I made so many friends, and we’re still connected. It was a nice opportunity to be surrounded by people who felt this was a significant opportunity. We were learning to have fun because it was summer, but also learning work-life balance.”

As a psychology major, Mia discovered new ways to connect her studies with her community and the environment..

“When people saw I was doing community forestry work, they thought psychology and forestry are two different things,” she explained. “But the way I saw it was the intersection between community forestry, justice-based work, and mental health. Change is like tree growth; it takes time. Like mental health, progress can be quiet, but it’s always happening.”

Reflecting on her experience, Mia also noticed how communication ties everything together.

“How you’re engaging with people in your community, how you’re presenting yourself, how you come to understand people, that’s a huge part of psychology,” she said. “It’s about human interaction and understanding why we behave a certain way and do things the way we do.”

Exploration is an important part of career discovery. For Mia, the exploration of the versatility of psychology awakens a deep desire to learn, grow, and add impact.

Ready to plant your own roots? Are you a College Track scholar from or attending school in California and interested in internships? Sign up for the NextGen Internship waitlist, and apply when applications open on January 9, 2026.