Theresa Meyer Earns Senior Spotlight

Since May 17, a large portion of Montclair High School seniors have been interning at various local businesses in lieu of going to school. The program is the “Career Internship Program” or more commonly known as “CIP” or “Senior Option”. The program has been running at MHS for a few years now and is enjoyed by all MHS seniors, both present and past.

Photo courtesy of Theresa Meyer
Photo courtesy of Theresa Meyer

Theresa Meyer was born to stand out.

Montclair High School senior Theresa Meyer spent her senior option working in the Montclair government. Meyer is assisting the Montclair Town Council’s Senior Citizens Advisory Committee in running a town-wide survey of senior citizens. The survey will be used to help orchestrate a lobbying platform for future action.

“I got this internship upon the recommendation of Montclair’s Deputy Mayor Robert Russo after interviewing twice for the position,” explained Meyer.

Some days, Theresa Meyer worked at the Montclair Department of Health, located at 205 Claremont Ave., while others were spent visiting various locations around Montclair.

“I had to visit quite a lot of nursing homes, retirement communities and local businesses,” said Meyer. “Visiting these places was the main way I could distribute and publicize the survey, which was my primary task for the internship.”

Going from place to place doing survey work can be quite a task. Despite this, Theresa Meyer maintained an intense passion for what she was doing, never letting trivial assignments or long days of running around get in the way of enjoying what she believed to be a great experience.

“I’m not going to lie, working on a survey can get very monotonous,” shared Meyer. “But I love working in the community and getting to talk to the people who would be directly affected by changing the legislation.”

This senior option was the perfect internship for Theresa Meyer, considering she is very active when it comes to government. She is not only a dedicated member of the high school’s Civics and Government Institute (also known as CGI), but incredibly involved outside of school, even making a visit to the United Nations this year, among various other accomplishments.

Theresa Meyer is particularly outspoken on women’s rights, both national and international.

“I was a delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women for two years for the Feminist Majority Foundation and Girls Learn International,” explained Meyer. “This year, I spoke before the General Assembly as a representative of the Coalition on Adolescent Girls and Public Health International.”

As of now, Theresa Meyer’s dream job would be to work as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Meyer believes her involvement in this survey and Montclair’s local government is a small step towards achieving that goal.

“This internship is giving me a first look at how I can work as a connection between people and the legislation the government enacts,” said Meyer.

Theresa Meyer will be attending Smith College in North Hampton, Massachusetts, come fall where she plans on working towards a major in Government and a minor in Public Policy.

 

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