Victoria Smiley is a graduating senior psychology major who will be pursuing a graduate degree in School Psychology at the University of Denver this fall.  Her career path was solidified by her internship experiences at Girls, Inc, where Victoria was able to facilitate a wide range of curricula with Philadelphia public school students.

Her favorite curriculum was the Operation SMART program, which introduced STEM activities to girls in a fun manner. For example, Victoria started this academic year by implementing Jump Rope Math, which allowed the students to design research and analyze data about double-dutch. Some of the research questions assessed whether or not jumping on one foot would result in more jumps than jumping on two, or if jumping barefoot or in sneakers would result in more consecutive jumps. From here, the students would conduct surveys and create graphs to represent the information.

During her internship with Girls, Inc., Victoria also mentored middle school girls by facilitating lessons about leadership, media literacy & sexuality. Through her experiences working in Philadelphia schools, Victoria realized the impact a school psychologist can have on students' lives, and she wants to successfully turn this into a career path.