Taylor Neal: The Opportunity Right Under Your Nose

“A non-profit substance abuse organization?”

 I questioned myself when my mom proposed the idea of me interning at Counseling Services of Lancaster (in my hometown of Lancaster, South Carolina), which she thought was a good idea in order for me to gain experience in different psychology fields. I had grown up in the non-profit industry due to my mom working within non-profit for 13 years of my life, about 10 of them being while she was an executive director. Of course, being the daughter of an executive director of a nonprofit made me a built-in volunteer in every way that they needed, from helping to sort foods in the warehouse to being the cute face during community outreach events. Due to this, I wasn’t exactly enthused by the idea of interning at a non-profit organization, especially one dealing with substance abuse, something I’ve never been exposed to but also wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted to do within the psychology field. I mean, I wanted to go down the forensic psychology route, not outreach-based substance abuse counseling. However, she was right when she said it would be great experience, and I figured it would look great on my resume, so I said why not. I didn’t realize how this internship would actually change my perspective and help me find a future career path to follow.

I started my internship in May of 2025 and like any other person, I was nervous on my first week of interning there. It did not help that the first community event we did, I was managing the organization booth by myself. Luckily, it was a healthcare aid event that had other non-profits present, including my mom’s organization. It was intimidating at first, but after a couple of people coming up to talk to me and ask questions, it became easier. After that event, when I was present at other outreach events, those that came up to my booth at the first event remembered me and continued to come talk to me about my part at the organization, and the organization itself.

As I continued to work there, I became more interested in working within a nonprofit organization like that. Every event I went to, I learned something new from the members of the community, the same community I lived in my entire life but still had more to learn from. I really saw this play out during this particular event that was held within the city of Lancaster, which has poorer neighborhoods than in the county. While there, an older local came up to my booth and was talking to me and the girl I worked with asking questions about what resources we offered. He went on to talk about how he sees so many young people getting into different substances and the schools not having enough education or rules against them. Because of this it was easier for minors to get ahold of those substances, especially within the school among classmates. He told us stories about seeing young kids getting ahold of substances that they shouldn’t and getting addicted or overdosing from those substances due to lack of rules and lack of education. Talking to him really gave me a new perspective on the importance of our prevention and education programs. It also gave me a perspective of this community I lived in but from a less sheltered perspective that my parents kept me in to shield me from the things that occurred around us such as gang violence, drugs, alcoholism, etc.

During that same event, I really saw how our prevention programs, the part of the organization I was interning under, really affected those who we taught. Part of our prevention program included education sessions where we would go out into the community and teach about the negative effects of substance abuse and reasons to stay away from them. One of the programs we did was going to the Lancaster children’s home teaching them about substance abuse. Before we started the sessions, we gave out a questionnaire to see where they stood on substance use and we would later compare it to how they see it after the education sessions. In the first questionnaire, most of them said that they saw nothing wrong with using things such as smoking vapes, drinking, etc. and explained how they vape at school with their friends among other things. About a week or so after these sessions, the teenagers from the children’s home came to this event and when they saw me and the girl I worked with, they immediately came up to us and one of the girls said how after those sessions, she decided to quit vaping, and some of the other girls said the same thing. It made me so happy how we were able to educate them on something that no one else did, and that we made a difference in their life.

This experience, one that I actually dreaded in the beginning, ended up being the best experience, and helped to figure out what career path in psychology I wanted to go down. I learned how learning about the community, from the community, can help make a difference within counseling. Community is such an important thing, and if you can get to the community, you can help the individuals within the community. It also gave me experience with kids during education sessions at summer camps for elementary schoolers, which helps since I want to also work with kids in my career. Not only did it give me great experience, but I was also blessed to have a paid internship and when summer came to an end, the director of prevention that I was working under briefly mentioned me working their full-time after graduation.

At the beginning of this year, I thought that my time studying abroad in Scotland was going to be thing that really stretched me and taught me more about myself and my future career path. When I went into the interview for this internship, I never thought that this internship would be the thing that taught me what career path I wanted to go down. More than anything, I didn’t think that being in my own town, the place I’ve lived my whole life, would be the thing that directed my future path. Sometimes, the opportunities that you wouldn’t even give a second thought about are the ones that leave the biggest impression. If there is an opportunity, you’re unsure about, take it because you never know what it’ll reveal or where it will take you.

Taylor Neal is a senior psychology major at Lander University. In the summer of 2025, she participated in an internship at the Counseling Services of Lancaster in Lancaster, South Carolina. She is expected to graduate in the Spring of 2026. After graduation, she is expected to continue her work at the Counseling Services of Lancaster as a full-time employee while pursuing her master’s in clinical psychology.