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Northeastern’s storied co-op program is an opportunity for students to explore passions, gain real-world experience and learn about themselves.
Maya Gayle, whose interest is law, leaped at the opportunity to work in one of the busiest court offices in the country: the probation department of the Southern District of New York.
In what she describes as a whirlwind few months, Gayle, a fourth-year student studying political science and economics, saw firsthand how the legal system functions not just as a mechanism for the adjudication of laws, but as an institution that touches countless lives.
The experience, she says, helped her “discover her own confidence.”
“Probation in Manhattan in New York, there were a lot of really intense individuals — and I mean that in the best way,” Gayle tells Northeastern Global News.
“I learned so much from the intensity of these people: their passion, what drives them and why they do what they do,” Gayle says. “It helped me kind of set aside my own uncertainty and paralyzing lack of confidence.”
Gayle immigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica when she was 7. She says her identity informs a great deal of who she is. A sensitivity to issues of justice and equity tilted her, she says, toward the social sciences.
But Gayle says she has known for some time that she wants to go to law school. Naturally, then, she felt it was important to get out of the classroom and into the real world.
“Probation surprised me because I had a lot more access to the courts than I thought I would,” Gayle says. “And the criminal justice aspect, when I first saw the opportunity, I thought it would provide something new from a co-op experience.”
Ultimately, it would solidify her desire to pursue law.
True to the Northeastern University co-op experience, Gayle says she was treated as any other employee in the courthouse (her supervisor alluded to this during her exit interview), with the appropriate flexibility.
“I absolutely had the privilege of being able to set my work aside after leaving, while the full-time employees are typically connected to their emails and work phones,” she says. “I think especially of the probation officers that needed to be in constant contact with their supervisees.”
Gayle had a direct hand in many court operations; she had the opportunity to work with probation officers on pre-sentencing interviews and participated in collateral contacts, which helps determine sentence recommendations. If there was a probationary violation, she got to observe the hearing process alongside the supervising officer.
Gayle spent a good bulk of her time tending to administrative duties, such as answering the phone, processing case files and overseeing digital data. But one aspect of the experience that Gayle says was particularly eye-opening was learning about the New York courthouse’s RISE program, or “Reentry through Intensive Supervision and Employment.”
The program is “dedicated to assuring the successful reentry into society of men and women on supervised release who are considered at highest risk of recidivism. It does so through initiatives that encourage self-awareness and employment,” according to its website.
It was through her direct experience with the RISE Court, Gayle says, that she learned a lot about how the court system affects people’s lives.
“Working with individuals, you start to see the kinds of challenges that they have” as they reenter society, Gayle says. “It felt very personal to me.”
It was her second co-op while a student at Northeastern, having completed her first with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office during her second year in 2021.
Apropos of that experience, as she finishes her time at Northeastern with an eye for what’s next, Gayle says she is interested in the world of criminal law — specifically, the prosecutor’s world.
“I think the government plays an important role, and so I have been interested in learning how the system works,” Gayle says.