Written by Celesia Smith
Name: Diavione Williams
Major: Canfield BHP, Finance + Minor in Sociology
Previous Internship: Texas Education Agency
Position: Grant Compliance and Administration Intern
Topics of Interest: social impact, early childhood education, studying to lofi beats
While some students searched Recruit McCombs for internships in supply chain management, investment banking, consulting, and more, Canfield BHP junior Diavione Williams searched for opportunities in education, whether it be social enterprise or government-related. Diavione ended up interning at the Texas Education Agency as a Grant Compliance and Administration Intern. In addition, Diavione is currently building her own education-based nonprofit, working to help close the opportunity gap throughout her time at UT.
Diavione’s passion for education stems from her own classroom experiences as being labeled a “gifted student” from an early age, something she says in-part is simply due to her parents’ high expectations. As she got older, Diavione said she realized that intelligence didn’t set her apart from non-gifted students, but rather environmental factors and opportunity.
“When I was super young, like in preschool, my family instilled in me the importance of education. My parents weren’t really involved in my academic life. It was simply an expectation that I was going to work hard– and I did,” Diavione said. “When you approach education from that standpoint, especially being really young, you’re seen as a gifted student, and then the myth of the gifted student (is formed). As I got older and older I started thinking, ‘What about the kids that aren’t considered gifted students? What makes them so different from me?’ and I realized there’s no difference at all. I realized that there’s just a really big disparity in the amount of education, opportunity, and classroom attention that lower-income or underprivileged students are given compared to their counterparts, so I’ve always made it a personal mission to do something about that.”
Throughout her college experience, Diavione has spent time working towards that personal mission. In the fall of her sophomore year, she joined the Social Entrepreneurship Learning Lab (SELL) Fellowship as a fellow candidate. Through SELL, Diavione began conducting research on educational equity in the hopes of founding a social enterprise that supports underprivileged youth.
“In the SELL Ideator Fellowship, I ideated a venture in which low-income, K-12 aged students would interact with a creative thinking and problem-solving curriculum that is built to help improve their confidence, classroom engagement, and peer engagement,” Diavione said. “It’s important to me that I do something with this where I can see a direct impact and right now my team and I are working on launching our first pilot study for this curriculum.”
This social enterprise, Wiggle Workshop, is a large part of Diavione’s life now, but she also wants to work in social impact beyond building this program. Her internship at the Texas Education Agency was one facet to learn about those types of opportunities.
“Even after Wiggle Workshop, I always want to be doing something where I’m creating some type of impact in the educational space and creating opportunities for underprivileged kids,” Diavione said. “As a Grant Compliance and Administration Intern, I looked over (Texas Education Agency) budgets for spending CARES Act grants and negotiated the disbursement of those grants. It was a really good experience– I can’t imagine there are many other internships as great as this one and I would love to work for the agency again, specifically in their financial department.”
Of course, the Canfield BHP community has played a role in supporting Diavione throughout the development of Wiggle Workshop and the search for her internship. When it comes to setting expectations and supporting her goals, Diavione said Canfield BHP was with her the entire way.
“Canfield BHP has been beneficial to me in terms of personal exploration,” Diavione said. “I think back on my one-on-one with Greta and how I came in really scared about how I didn’t know if my business aspirations were like everyone else’s, but BA 101H and Greta put an emphasis on doing what aligns with your interests and something that fulfills you. I think that’s perfect– for me, in every facet of my life, I try to only do things that really enrich me.”