Hey, my name is Erica and I am one of the new youth advisors at the Center for Young Women’s Health (CYWH) at Children’s Hospital Boston. I consider myself a very social person and I enjoy helping others. I am usually the one my friends go to for help or if they need any questions answered; I am the type of girl you won’t be afraid of approaching.

Like every other teenager who needs money to pay for sneakers, shoes, clothes and other things I was looking for a job. One day I was checking my email and, like every other month, I received the Menino bulletin. I decided to open it out of curiosity and saw a list of activities taking place in the community, volunteer positions and JOB OPPORTUNITIES. Well, I actually didn’t really get my hopes up because I never really found anything that caught my attention and interested me. But, this time I did. I saw that one of the listings said Center for Young Women’s Health at Children’s Hospital. Out of curiosity I looked it up to see what it was. I mean I did not want to work at a weird place. I checked out the site and emailed Adrianne. After talking to her I gained more interest and instantly applied and sent her my application through email. A couple of days later I was contacted for an interview. I was extremely happy, it made my day.

I went for an interview and I am going to have to admit that I was quite nervous at first. I thought I was going to be interviewed by a very serious looking person that was going to ask me all kinds of questions that I did not know how to answer. Luckily, I was interviewed by a senior peer leader named Dennisse. Honestly, when I met her I was even more excited about working here. She is really outgoing and made me feel comfortable. All of a sudden the feeling of being nervous went away. Instead of the formal and strict interview I pictured, we had more of a conversational interview, yet work-related and informative. That seemed to go well until they gave me a call to tell me I had another interview. This time I was going to be interviewed by Phaedra, Adrianne, and Dennisse. I also had to make a presentation on a health topic of my choice and present it to them. Luckily, I did good and that same day I got hired. I was on the bus home with my mother when they told me and I was so excited that nothing could wipe the smile off my face.

At CYWH, I am looking forward to helping teens that are unaware of a lot of the things going on. I do not have a little sister to give advice to and therefore I chose to help and inform all the other teens out there. I am looking forward to help a lot of people and becoming a good resource for them.

-Erica