Name: Emily Aoki
Role in Service-Learning: Service-Learning Teaching Assistant
College Affiliation: Bouvé College of Health Sciences
Major: Physical Therapy
How are your values expressed through your community engagement and Service-Learning work?
One of the values I hold the closest to my heart is respect. I think that this program has an abundance of it. The Service-Learning model at Northeastern has taught me that community engagement is all about respect. Respect for the people that live in the community, respect for the organizations that work to further the community and respect for all those around you that you interact with in between.
What is one thing everyone should know about Service-Learning?
You get to meet so many amazing people in so many different communities! I am still in touch with some of the people from my first Service-Learning placement to this day. I have made the most amazing friends throughout the community that have taught me so much about Boston and the role that their work takes in their own community.
Did you find Service-Learning or did Service-Learning find you?
Service-Learning found me! When I was a freshman I opted into a Service-Learning section of my Connections and Decisions class (a seminar for Explore Program freshmen) without even realizing what I had signed up for. But it didn’t take long before I fell in love with everything about it. I loved going and learning at my Service-Learning site as well as hearing about all my other classmates’ sites. Such amazing work is being done in and around the Boston communities and I can’t imagine my time at Northeastern without it.
If Service-Learning were a food, what would it be and why?
Tempura udon! Because it is an endless web of connections like a bowl of udon noodles are. And it always has fun surprises like the crunch of tempura!
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