Meet Joseph, a current first-year CDA, originally from California. He double-majored in Literature and History at UCLA and graduated in 2009.  After graduating, he moved to South Korea to teach English.  He loved Korea so much that he ended up staying there for 4 years.  He ended up meeting his now fiancée there and followed her to Nashville when she started working at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

When he first moved to Nashville, he worked with AmeriCorps at the PENCIL Foundation running their afterschool program at Apollo Middle School.  His time there was really enlightening and helped him realize that the CDA program was a great fit.  Academically, he is most interested in looking at schools as community spaces and, to a lesser extent, the community as a learning space.  He has really enjoyed all his courses at Vanderbilt, especially learning about organizational theory with Dr. Bess and Dr. Diehl.

While not at Vanderbilt, Joseph is doing his practicum with Centerstone Research Institute. He works on the iThrive Project, which tries to address mental health issues with teens through video games. He is also still involved with after school programs through the Nashville After-Zone Alliance (NAZA) as an program evaluator.  He spend the little free time he has reading comics and trying new foods.