Miles Cameron

What do you do as a Human Services Intern? 

“I’m able to have a lot of creative freedom as an intern here. One of my projects is creating a resource map that will eventually be used for the website. The resource map includes food banks, housing assistance, affordable child care, and affordable medical care. All of this will be put on Google Maps. For instance, someone who lives in Buckley and doesn’t know what resources are available to them could access this map to help them. This will eventually turn into a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) project. My next project will involve affordable housing inventory. I will need to create an Excel spreadsheet of all the affordable housing resources available in Pierce County and turning that into a map as well. I don’t have a ton of experience with mapping, but thankfully I’ll be meeting with someone who will help me with that.” 

Why intern for Pierce County? 

“I like that Pierce County focuses on reaching out to communities with help and resources beyond just Tacoma. I’ve never ventured out to communities outside of Tacoma, so it has been great doing site visits and seeing for myself what these communities need. For me, I’ve been able to focus in on people who don’t have access to resources that people living in the city do. Interning at Pierce County is great, because you see all parts of the county.”

Advice for future interns? 

“I would encourage future interns to get a feel for the environment. See if this is somewhere you see yourself in in the future. Internships are a good opportunity to get a feel for a place and explore your options. Regardless of where you are, try to be an asset to your department and produce good quality work that you can be proud of.”

Fun fact about yourself:

“This summer I went to Japan with my girlfriend. We went to Tokyo, Oiso and Osaka. We were there for two weeks. It was my first time outside the country and my girlfriend’s first time on a plane. It was a good growing experience for both of us.”