The IRC is experiencing SUCCESS! Having Bianca Bouknight intern with us this year, we are literally working with Students United for Campus-Community Engagement for Post-Secondary Success (SUCCESS).

This pilot program, offered through the Shriver Center, is the result of a partnership between UMBC and the Maryland Department of Disabilities. It offers adult individuals with intellectual disabilities a four-year college experience, enabling them to exercise critical thinking and gain skills that can be used in employment settings and independent living.

Bianca is a second-year SUCCESS student, and we are absolutely delighted to have her interning at the IRC. She is primarily working with video software to log content from a series of interviews about food and culture.  She has shown a real strength for quickly learning multiple computer programs, and her ability to paraphrase interviewees’ answers is very impressive!

When asked about her favorite part of being at the IRC, Bianca said that she really appreciates learning to work with video editing software. She likes using computers and would love to professionally get into something like marketing or, ideally, animation.

What Bianca loves most about the SUCCESS program is the opportunity, which she never thought she would have, to be engaged in a college environment. The combination of taking classes and interning at the IRC is helping her with her goal “to do better things.”  That ambition is one that the IRC shares, and we anticipate success!

If you want to learn more about the SUCCESS program, you can click here to read an article at Southern Maryland Online. The video that accompanies the story features an interview with Bianca.