As a senior at Central Park East High School, Yonick Pineda worked as a CARA Youth Leader. After enrolling at Brown University as a QuestBridge National Match Scholar last fall, he has returned to NYC this summer to work as an intern for CARA’s Right to College and College Bridge programs.
This is CARA’s 11th summer participating in Brown University’s Careers in the Common Good (CCG) internship program, but Yonick is our first CCG intern to have participated in our programs while in high school. In this interview, he shares what he learned as a youth leader, how that’s helped him in college, and what new insights he’s gained from facilitating trainings rather than attending them as a student.
How did your time as a youth leader shape your first year of college?
I feel like every time I do any sort of leadership role, I get more extroverted than I already am. You get more used to speaking in a crowd, and then you get used to speaking to people who you’re unfamiliar with. It’s a skill you really want when going into a very large and diverse group such as college. You also get support while being a youth leader, and after. You get support from your fellow youth leaders, you get support from your supervisor, you get support from people at CARA. That support adds up because everyone wants to see you succeed. It’s definitely given me the edge and the readiness that I needed both with my actual application and mentally while in college.
What was most impactful about your experience as a Youth Leader in high school?
Being a youth leader, I feel like there’s so much that you learn from the overall experience. I learned a lot about my own facilitation skills and what I still need to improve on–my glows and grows. I’ve also learned a lot about how the college application works which in turn helps you out in your own process. One of the things that amazed me was that there’s a lot of things that are not necessarily within the job description: you gain a deeper connection with some of your classmates and learn how to be a better role model. One thing that really stuck out was how unique everyone’s journey is and how you’re a part of everyone’s unique journey.
What have you learned coming back to CARA this summer helping train youth leaders as an intern?
I always wondered about the developmental aspects of CARA, like how do they prep? What do they do behind the scenes? Now I see how the way they formulate and structure the sessions is so students can be willing to actively learn and engage. Like the icebreakers, how the activities try to be more hands-on than just reading, and how they try to make everything as fun as possible. I feel like that format really pushes students to get out there and learn more.
This experience has also taught me another thing, and that is the importance of a sense of community. Because community is just important in general, and if you’re in a comfortable space, you’re gonna be more open. Especially when you’re working with other students, you wanna make them comfortable so they can be more open to not only ask for help, but also to receive it. That’s something that youth leaders experience themselves during training, and it’s also something they provide for their own students to make them feel comfortable, open, and to help them learn. So I feel it just creates this cycle of positivity and pure openness.