Sometimes an internship can lead you down a whole new path

“I never saw myself becoming a teacher,” Josh Maley ’17 confessed.

Oglethorpe has a way of opening new doors, just like it did for Maley. The university’s unique position within Atlanta allow it to surface opportunities that would never be on your radar otherwise.

Maley had no plans to become an educator four years ago. In fact, he was completely undecided. After attending Scholarship Weekend and being impressed with the faculty, he followed his interests, choosing a psychology major and history minor.

Soon, Maley began searching for work experience via internships. The Piedmont School of Atlanta, which serves high-achieving children with autism and other learning and social challenges, and is located on the Oglethorpe campus, was looking for psychology majors to help in an afterschool program.

“It was specifically for psych majors which is very hard to come by,” Maley said about originally choosing to apply. “There was also a part of me that wanted to push myself to get outside of my comfort zone because I had never worked with kids before.”

Despite having no previous experience in the field, Maley, and fellow classmate Megan Patterson ’17, began working with students, helping them to interact with children at the Boys and Girls Club, tutoring and running research projects. The latter being one of the draws to the position.

“They use a lot of techniques from [behavioral psychology] around the school,” Maley said. “[At Oglethorpe] we used advanced experimental research methods which a lot of other schools skim over. It gives us a bit of an edge because we know how to do research.”

Maley started his internship in the spring of 2016, and almost a year and a half later, while preparing to take a gap year before possible postgraduate education, he was presented with a prospect he hadn’t considered. Head of School Dr. Catherine Trapani, comfortable and confident in Maley’s abilities, offered a full-time position teaching social studies at the Piedmont School.

To Maley, he saw this as an opportunity to grow and learn himself, as well as pass on valuable information he received over his undergraduate years.

“Having them get a well-rounded education because that’s what I got [at Oglethorpe]. That will influence their classes and how I go about teaching,” Maley said. “It’s a specialized curriculum focused on what each child needs. They learn daily skills so they can live on their own,”

Teaching will continue to influence Maley as well. He may still pursue a masters or doctorate in the future, and it may now be related to education as well as psychology, like he originally planned, saying, “Oglethorpe has allowed me to have this opportunity and has given me skills to adapt to anything.”