As political science major Sophia Mosley, Class of 2025, looks ahead toward law school in the fall, she will be more than prepared. That’s because this past summer, she completed an internship at the Education Law Center here in Philadelphia. There, she learned the ins and outs of education policy and advocated for the children of this city. Hailing from Somerset, Massachusetts, Mosley is proud to support the educational system in the city where she found community, friends and mentors.
We’ll hand the gavel over to Mosley, as she takes you through a day in her life at the Education Law Center.
---
Hi everyone! My name is Sophia Mosley, and I am very excited to take you guys with me through a day in the life of my internship. This fall, I interned at the Education Law Center here in Philadelphia, a nonprofit law firm dedicated to ensuring all students have access to a fair and equitable public education. Before I get into the details, here is a little bit about me.
I am a senior political science major with a minor in Africology and African American studies. I am from Somerset, Massachusetts, which is about five hours from Temple (on a good day), and I am going to law school in the fall of 2025. I ended up here at Temple because the second I stepped foot on campus, I found community, and I knew right away that would be super important to me because I was going to school so far away from home. Now, I am a senior and will forever be thankful for the friends, teachers and mentors I met in this city!
Okay, now into the good stuff. The commute to the office is very quick; I take a brief walk to the Cecil B. Moore SEPTA stop (which we all know and love), I get on the Broad Street Line to City Hall, and then I walk a short five to eight minutes to JFK Boulevard where the ELC office is located.
Once I get to the office, I make my way around the maze of offices and say good morning to the staff who are in. I was the only undergraduate intern in the office, so I always felt it was important to say hi to everyone even if I did not work with them directly.
One of the reasons I have loved my time here at the Education Law Center is because the work I did varied in content each day. The School District of Philadelphia is one of the largest in Pennsylvania, meaning that every single day there was always something new that needed to be done. I worked on writing narratives about new district policies, regulations or changes in administration. I also did extensive legal research on school districts and administrations throughout the state, ensuring that students’ right to a fair and comprehensive education is not being compromised.
I was also responsible for compiling resources such as presentations and spreadsheets which could be distributed to other organizations. The research I was responsible for was often scattered throughout different departments. For me, this meant putting all the information in one place, which was crucial for ensuring that other organizations (including the Education Law Center) had easy access to the information.
As an undergraduate intern, I was able to work with everyone in the office on a series of different projects. But ultimately, everyone worked toward one goal: Students everywhere deserve to be able to go to school every single day with the resources, support and guidance they need. The right to a comprehensive and public education for students is the center of the work done at the Education Law Center, which is why I was able to learn so much from this experience.
As a student, I have gained so much from my time in the classroom, and this experience allowed me to help ensure this right for other students as well. As I prepare to attend law school in the fall, I intend to pursue education policy law. My experience here at the Education Law Center has shown me not only the importance, but the differences which can be made when students have an advocate in their corner. I am looking forward to using all the skills I learned throughout my internship experience to continue this work in my future career.