Merging academics with real-world, tangible experiences

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Rising fourth-year Sarah Usandivaras Klaehn has been gathering work experience at Penn along with her studies. She has created social media content as an intern at the Arthur Ross Gallery, researched and written about misinformation as a fellow at FactCheck.org, and is working as an executive intern for Women’s Campaign International. a nonprofit founded by one of her Penn professors.

A double major in political science and communications in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Annenberg School for Communication, this summer Usandivaras Klaehn is gaining new experience off campus as a marketing and communications intern with the international nonprofit Girls Inc. at its headquarters in Manhattan. Founded 160 years ago, Girls Inc. is a leadership organization with programs in the United States and Canada.

“I was drawn to Girls Inc. because it’s an organization that provides outreach and mentorship to thousands of young girls,” Usandivaras Klaehn says. Pointing to her experience as a volunteer teacher in her hometown of Asunción, Paraguay, she says, “I know firsthand the importance of having a mentor and having a teacher or someone who believes in you.”

Born in New York City and raised in Paraguay, Usandivaras Klaehn is a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, a Penn Scholars program that draws from the four undergraduate schools and encourages integration across academic disciplines. She found this summer’s Girls Inc. opportunity through the Robert A. Fox Leadership Fellowship program and received additional summer funding through the Robert K. Johnson (RKJ) Integrated Studies Program, the School of Arts & Sciences’ section of Benjamin Franklin Scholars. The additional RKJ funding was administered by Penn’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships.

At Girls Inc. Usandivaras Klaehn reports to Liz Velez, director of marketing and communications. “Sarah plays an important role in amplifying our message and increasing awareness of our work,” Velez says. “Her work helps us connect more deeply with our supporters, partners, and participants.”

Usandivaras Klaehn has been drafting communications and messaging and researching experiences by the girls. “She supports the development of social media content, authors blog posts, contributes to our newsletters, and helps us highlight stories of Girls Inc. participants in compelling and authentic ways,” Velez says.

For a blog post, Usandivaras collaborated with one of the girls chosen as a “brand ambassador” to write about her favorite experiences. Another piece for the nonprofit’s national newsletter involved interviewing girls who went to Washington, D.C., to meet with the Girls Inc. public policy team and visit with members of Congress.

The nonprofit has hosted interns from Penn for years, a partnership started under the tenure of the former chief executive officer, Judy Vrendenburgh, a Penn alum, Velez says.

“We’re always impressed by the caliber of students we receive from Penn, and Sarah has been no exception,” Velez says. “Internships like this one not only provide valuable support to our team but also help us build lasting connections with young leaders who care deeply about the world and advancing our mission.” In return for real-world experience in the nonprofit sector Penn student interns bring “fresh ideas, strong academic training, and a desire to make a difference,” Velez says.

Usandivaras Klaehn says experiences at Penn in the classroom and her internships “have really prepared me for working in a nonprofit and public service in general. It’s rewarding when I’m able to tell my supervisors at Girls Inc. about something that I learned in my communications class and how that could impact our messaging.”

Working at the Arthur Ross Gallery through Penn’s Summer Humanities Internship Program the summer after her second year, she learned about content creation for social media, taking over the Instagram account. “It was my true introduction into marketing and communications where I was really given creative liberty to understand what I was passionate about and what I wanted to do,” she says. She has since served as chair of the Gallery’s student advisory board for the past two years.

Last year, inspired by a course she took taught by Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication, she became an Undergraduate Fellow at FactCheck.org. As a Fellow, her primary role was fact checking and writing articles about misinformation in political coverage. She also was part of the team of students who fact-checked the 2024 political debates before the election. “That was a very interesting experience and really solidified the fact that I want to continue doing work with writing and research,” she says.

And for the past two years Usandivaras Klaehn has been working with the nonprofit Women’s Campaign International, founded and led by Annenberg lecturer Marjorie Margolis. She plans to continue during her fourth year. This fall she will also serve as a teaching assistant in the Annenberg course Margolis is co-teaching with David Eisenhower titled The First 100 Days. Eisenhower is the advisor for Usandivaras Kleehn’s honors thesis in Annenberg’s Communications and Public Service Program concentration.

She says she’s benefitted from taking classes with professors who are experts in their field. “Penn is a very special place and merges research and academics with real world, tangible experiences and lessons that have really been helpful to me in in my career development.”