internships

A Pipeline to Talent: An Update with some Monroe-Brown Interns

Posted on
Taylor Brown and Doug Phillips
Taylor Brown ’15 (left) with Doug Phillips, director of client relations at AVB

Recent Kalamazoo College graduates sometimes assume there are no opportunities in Kalamazoo for job growth, and so they move to bigger cities. This perception is often a misconception, and to help set the record straight, Joan Hawxhurst, director of the Center for Career and Professional Development, highlights an exclusive local internship opportunity.

“The Monroe-Brown Internships serve as a pipeline for thriving local businesses to access local student talent,” she said.

The program began in 2005 and is administered by the economic development organization Southwest Michigan First. Its aims are two-fold: to help companies find talented young students and to help young people pursue meaningful careers. “It’s an investment that goes both ways,” said Hawxhurst.

This year 32 students from K applied for Monroe-Brown Internships and four were selected, a robust representation for K. They are: Taylor Brown ’15 with AVB, Drew Hopper ’15 at Eaton Corporation, William Cagney ’15 at Imperial Beverage, and Stephen Oliphant ’15 at Schupan & Sons, Inc.

Hopper is a Global Product Strategy Intern at Eaton. He recently returned from studying abroad at the London School of Economics, and he finds his internship an excellent proving ground to apply and develop skills in marketing, engineering, and program management.

“Eaton stresses employee development, and everyone is open to providing outlets for personal improvement, particularly with the interns.” He has participated in presentations, meetings, research projects, and analysis-based discussions.

Brown works for Portage-based construction firm AVB. Last year she worked behind-the-scenes with the construction management company, Skanska. She finds the Monroe-Brown internship with AVB “much more hands-on,” she says. “A great deal of my work is on display, because I am responsible for writing, designing, and distributing newsletters and press-releases via print and e-mail.”

She created a slideshow presentation that plays in AVB’s foyer. And she frequently meets with the company’s Chief Operating Officer and other top executives. Like Hopper, she said she has developed confidence in presenting herself in the business world.

There are many opportunities for professional growth in Kalamazoo; just ask K’s Monroe-Brown interns.

 

 

Summertime: No Day at the Beach for these Kalamazoo College Students

Posted on
K students interning in Washington, D.C.
Some of the K students interning in Washington, D.C. this summer are (l-r): Katie Clark ’16, Noah Arbit ’17, Skylar Young ’15, Kylah Simmons ’17, Natalie Cherne ’15, and Fatima Hanne ’15. Amber Whittington ’08 (far right) is Director of Operations at the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Amber invited the K interns to the recent Senate ice cream social.

Just as many newly minted Kalamazoo College graduates are heading into the work world, rising K sophomores, juniors, and seniors are venturing into their own workplace adventures. Steeped in a historical commitment to experiential education, the Career and Professional Development component of the K-Plan is now identified with summer “externships” and internships administered by the College’s Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD).

During summer 2014, 50 rising K sophomores and juniors will explore new career paths as “externs” through the CCPD’s unique Discovery Extern Program that allows students to both live and work with active professionals, including K alumni, for one to four weeks.

Summer 2014 Discovery Externs spend their days alongside professionals in hospitals and health centers, law offices, schools, libraries, businesses, nature centers, and farms, and then they’ll head home together for wide-ranging “porch time” conversations.

CCPD Program Administrator Pam Sotherland has helped nurture hundreds of new connections through the program that began as a pilot in 2001.

“The value of the Discovery Externship Program lies in the opportunity for a student to live and work with an alum and through that experience forge what many participants have said will be a lifelong relationship,” said Pam.

Additionally, the CCPD’s Field Experience Program (FEP) has scores of students enrolled in internships during summer 2014. Whether students identify internships through the CCPD or on their own, all FEP interns learn about a possible career, hone transferrable skills, and build professional networks.

Ogden Wright ’16, from Jamaica, is headed to Pennsylvania to intern at the Delaware County Planning Department with alumnus Justin Dula ’99. Ogden, who plans a career in civil engineering, said he hopes “to learn, from a public sector perspective, how urban planning is organized and implemented, and to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue a career in a governmental organization.”

It’s a big year for K student interns in Washington, D.C.

After working on several political campaigns, Natalie Cherne ’15, from Minnesota, hopes her summer internship in Minnesota Senator Al Franken’s Washington, D.C. office will hone her policy-writing skills.

“By applying my learning from political science classes to writing policy memoranda, taking notes at hearings, and conducting research, I will contribute to making the policies I referred to when talking with voters about issues,” she said.

Noah Arbit ’17, from West Bloomfield, Michigan is interning at the Washington, D.C.-based National Coalition Supporting Eurasian Jewry, a nongovernmental organization working to ensure the safety and nondiscrimination of Jews in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (especially topical given unfolding events in Ukraine).

As soon as Alex Werder ’15 finishes up at his study abroad program in China, he will return to the U.S. to intern in the Washington, D.C. office of New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt.

“Rush is my congressman from New Jersey’s 12th District and I have wanted to work for him since I was old enough to know what politics was all about,” said Alex. “I could not be more thrilled to be going on this adventure this summer.”

Employers, alumni, parents, and friends of the College who would like to learn more about hosting a K intern or extern should contact the Center for Career and Professional Development at 269.337.7183 or career@kzoo.edu.

Story and photo by Joan Hawxhurst, CCPD.

Neurosurgery Internship

Posted on

Brielle Bethke ’16 did an independent internship at the University of Louisville Center for Neurological Surgery. There she assisted with physical therapy, conducted data analysis, shadowed physicians and researchers, and met people with a unique outlook on life. Her work is connected to a recent CNN Health Report story about a study of the applications of electrical stimulation in spinal cord injury. Two people with whom Brielle worked are featured in the story. She worked with Dustin, a patient in the study who, at age 18, suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Dr. Susan Harkema, the head of neurological surgery at the Frazier Rehabilitation Institute, was the supervisor of Brielle’s internship. Brielle is majoring in biology and earning a minor in Spanish. She is a member of the Health Guild and will study abroad in Caceres, Spain, during her junior year.

Headline and Lead Combine “Data,” “Value,” and Kalamazoo College

Posted on
Associate Provost Paul Sotherland
Associate Provost Paul Sotherland is an expert on K outcomes in the Collegiate Learning Assessment.

A Wall Street Journal article (“College Uses Test Data to Show Value,” by Douglas Belkin, February 20, 2014) describes K’s efforts to measure (and market) the gains its students experience in critical thinking and problem solving skills because of the K undergraduate learning experience.

The article notes that K leads a growing trend of colleges and universities becoming more transparent about sharing test data and other metrics to show the learning outcomes of a higher education. For his story Belkin interviewed Dean of Admission Eric Staab and Associate Provost Paul Sotherland as well  students and their parents for his article. The piece notes that K (Sotherland) shares data that documents the effect and value of a K education with parents and prospective students during campus visits.

Much of that data originates from the Collegiate Learning Assessment, currently the most reliable direct measure of students’ gains in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, writing, and problem solving as a result of particular undergraduate learning experiences. What distinguishes the CLA from other assessments is its focus on direct measures of learning rather than an aggregate of surrogate markers that include, for example (in some rankings), the size of an institution’s endowment or the number of alumni that provide annual gifts.

Active Autumn in Career Education

Posted on
Bret Linvill, Jerry Mechtenberg-Berrigan and Amos
Bret Linvill ’15 (center) during his summer internship, flanked by alumni supervisor Jerry Mechtenberg-Berrigan ’97 (right) and Jerry’s son, Amos. Linvill’s was a Community Building Internship organized jointly with the College’s Center for Civic Engagement.

Autumn’s active in the Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD). The Recruiting Expo and the Professional Development Institute are hard-to-miss fall events. And you often find CCPD staff speaking in upper-level classes and first-year seminars. Every day CCPD staff members help students with career counseling, with assessment tools, and with application materials. And fall’s the time CCPD reaches out to alumni and parents to invite their partnership in providing summer career development opportunities for students.

Alumni and parents, let us know if you will host a summer student, either through the Discovery Externship Program or as a K Intern in the Field Experience Program.

Externships: Short Homestay and Job Shadow

Past externship hosts, who have housed students and hosted them in their workplace for up to four weeks in the summer, become enthusiastic advocates for the program.

“John and Tyler were wonderful externs! Not only did we enjoy them tremendously, but we received such positive feedback from our colleagues who graciously spent time with them. The days were long and hectic, but our dinners were relaxed and full of conversations about their days, their impressions, the state of medicine, and more.” – Sherri Seifert ’83

“It is always great to connect with a current K student and to spend time sharing my home and work life. As I have become more professionalized in my career, I find I can more comfortably provide advice and insight into working in the arts.” – Bethany Whitehead ’98

“Discovery Externship is a special program that I highly endorse. I wish all college students could have such an experience. The students come well prepared and ready to try out new things. And we seem to benefit just as much as they do.” – Anne Dayanandan ’75

Other comments:

“I found it a lot of fun. I enjoyed showing our student what practicing medicine is like. It helped me reflect on what I was like at 19 trying to make similar career decisions.”

“Hosting a K student was a lovely experience. It was fun to get to share my experiences at and beyond K with her. When I was at K, wondering what I might do next, I had no idea what graduate school was all about. I enjoyed being able to offer a K student a glimpse of that next step and to provide some guidance about how to get there.”

“I enjoyed the opportunity to talk with the extern about my own scattered career path. I reassure students that career paths do not need to be defined at graduation and do not need to be linear. I wish I had someone to talk to about such concerns when I was a student.”

“It’s great to see the level of intellectual curiosity that I remember as a hallmark of my time at K is still alive and well in the current student body. My extern made me feel as if the DNA of the college was still much the same–the students are there because they are truly engaged and committed to learning. That was nice to see.”

Internships: Summer Workplace Immersion

Externship host Bridget Blough with her two summer externs
Externship host Bridget Blough ’08 (right) shares a day at the beach with her two summer externs.

Alumni and parents who select and supervise student interns for at least six weeks through the Field Experience Program are similarly effusive. They cite many benefits of involvement, including:

– Engagement with talented, idealistic, dedicated students;

– Enhancement of the projects to which interns are assigned;

– The real and valuable work undertaken by the students;

– The learning that goes both ways;

– The opportunity to see future leaders learn and grow by doing.

The program’s structure–a sliding-scale stipend, a learning contract, regular contact with the CCPD through reflective assignments, final evaluations, and official transcript notation–ensures that learning goals and mutual expectations are established and met.

The CCPD is currently fielding inquiries and confirming participation for both extern and intern hosts for summer 2014. Alumni and parents may indicate their interest in either program online, and a CCPD staff member will respond by mid-November. As fall turns to winter, our students will head off for winter break, and the CCPD’s summer line-up will be complete.

Double Intern

Posted on

Zoe Beaudry with young students in HaitiSo eventful was the junior year of senior Zoe Beaudry that she made sure the summer following was just as worthy in terms of experiential opportunities. Zoe studied abroad in Israel during her junior fall and winter terms. That was followed with spring quarter on campus, during which she worked toward her major in art. Then came a summer of two internships. The first found Zoe in Massachusetts, working with Israeli and Palestinian youth to build community across cultures and differences through art. The second half of Zoe’s summer was spent in Haiti, as an intern with International Child Care. ICC is a Christian health development organization that has operated in Haiti since 1967. It works to change the conditions of poverty that impact health and well-being. Zoe kept a blog while she was in Haiti. Its entries cover her first impressions and hopes and her first art session with children at ICC’s Grace Children’s Hospital. She also worked in the wider community. ICC’s community outreach program serves families of mentally or physically handicapped children in the community by sending hospital staff to their homes for weekly physical therapy or mental exercise sessions. News of her art sessions spread, and so she did artwork with children who participate in community inclusion program. The photo was taken after that session: Zoe is pictured in the back row, at left. Her blog entries are worth a read. Zoe’s senior year promises to be as rewarding as her junior year. Among other activities, she is a Civic Engagement Scholar (CES) for the program Partners in Art. The CES program is administered by the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Center for Civic Engagement.

Writer’s Voice Rising

Posted on

Alejandra Castillo ’15 will be the first in her family to graduate from college, and she is making her family proud every step of the way. “My three siblings dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. The fact that I’m at a prestigious liberal arts college is truly a dream come true, not just for me but for my whole family.”

Castillo is a Posse scholar, attending Kalamazoo College on a full scholarship awarded to teens from urban areas who exhibit high academic achievement and leadership skills.

Four years ago, while still a high school student, Castillo began work at a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization called WriteGirl. This summer, she returned to the organization, but this time on an “independent internship” through K’s Center for Career and Professional Development’s Field Experience Program. WriteGirl challenges interns to think critically about the world, to write about it, and then to voice their work out loud. Leadership, communication skills and self-confidence are qualities nurtured in the program.

“I came back to WriteGirl because I want to be as ready as I can be to enter the workforce when I graduate college,” says Castillo.

At Kalamazoo College, Castillo is majoring in anthropology and sociology AND distinguishing herself as a playwright. Her one-act play, How Miss Long Beach Became Miss Long Beach, will be performed at the Kalamazoo College Festival Playhouse as part of the Senior Performance Series under direction of senior Amy Jimenez. The Senior Performance Series will occur May 1-4, 2014.

“Alejandra has been my student in playwriting class, and she developed this play in an independent study,” says her theatre arts professor, Ed Menta. “It’s a heartfelt and funny story of a young Latina who has mixed feelings about her mother forcing her to participate in a beauty pageant. The play touches on issues of mother/daughter, body image, assimilation, and sexuality.”

Another Castillo play, Say Yes, a conversation between two young people in the parking lot of a convenience store in Los Angeles, was selected for the Kalamazoo New Play Festival.

It’s not dirt, it’s SOIL: Reflections from a K summer internship

Posted on

Monica Cooper ′14says she is “really excited about pursuing a masters and/or Ph.D. after I graduate.”

Monica Cooper ′14 in a lab
Monica Cooper ′14 prepares a 96 well micro plate in Dr. Sarah Emery’s lab at the University of Louisville. Photo credit: Phung Nguyen.

A big reason for her enthusiasm is taking place right now–her summer internship working on the Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Ecological Research experiment, or KBS LTER, part of Michigan State University’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation.

The KBS is located in Hickory Corners, Mich., not far from Kalamazoo. Monica, a biology major who completed her K study abroad in Quito, Ecuador, is working with KBS LTER scientists at the University of Louisville in Kentucky where she studies “a pesky little protein,” goes “botanizing” in local parks, and explores the Red River Gorge.

“I hope to be a community level ecologist, and never really pictured myself in a lab, indoors, for a whole summer,” wrote Monica in a recent blog post about her summer internship. “Through this REU, I have learned an incredible amount about soil ecology, botany, and what research really is.”

“Monica wrote a terrific blog about her research experience,” wrote MSU Agriculture & Ecology Education & Outreach Specialist Julie Doll, Ph.D., in an email. “We are pleased to work with her and hope to work with other Kalamazoo College students in the future.”

Read Monica′s blog post here.

Freshly Filtered Fertilizer

Posted on

Samantha Jolly ’15 is building a bike that will help save the world.

As you know, the Kalamazoo College campus is covered with gardens large and small. But did you know that the College produces some its very own compost to fertilize these gardens? It does. And it intends to produce even more this coming year with help from Jolly’s bike.

Compost Intern Sammy Jolly works toward creating a bicycle
Compost Intern Sammy Jolly with the beginnings of the bike.

Jolly and other Student Compost Interns in the K Recycling Department collect food waste from the Living Learning Houses and elsewhere on campus each week and place it in compost bins located in The Grove behind DeWaters and Trowbridge Residence Halls. Last year’s pilot project turned about 3,000 pounds of food waste into composted soil that helps fertilize garden beds across campus.

Mother nature controls much of the composting process, but Jolly and her fellow interns speed that process by regularly turning  compost in the bins with pitchforks and shovels. They also filter out the final product (dirt, essentially) from the active material by shaking it all through hand-held screens.

Here’s where the world-saving bike comes in. Working from her own design and with help from K Recycling Director Rob Townsend, Jolly is building a stationary bike to help separate the finely composted soil from larger chunks. Instead of a rear wheel, her bike features a cylinder made of chicken wire stretched around old bike wheel rims. A bike chain connects the cylinder, which straddles the legs of an old College bunk bed, to the bike gears.

Students shovel compost into the cylinder, jump on the bike seat, and pedal. The chain turns the cylinder, which churns the compost. A wheelbarrow strategically placed under the cylinder catches the fine freshly filtered fertilizer.

Thereby saving the world. Or at least one small corner of it in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“It′s been really fun trying to find things to recycle and turn into this sifter. It′s like one giant recycling project. I have to build a machine out of recycled parts to help recycle our food waste!” said Jolly.

K-Plan Cultivation

Posted on

Kalamazoo College students may not be in class during the summer, but they are busy cultivating their K-Plans, across the country and around the world, in externships and internships supported by the Center for Career and Professional Development.

This summer 109 students are taking part in the CCPD’s summer career development programs. The Discovery Externship Program, in its 12th year, offers 46 first-year and sophomore students the opportunity to test the waters of a possible career by living and working with an alumni or parent professional for up to four weeks. Externs and hosts agree that the intensity of sharing both workday and “porchtime” experiences leads to rich relationships and deep discovery about the reality of the working world. This summer discovery externs can be found shadowing alumni in hospitals and health networks, a maritime museum, an organic food truck, dentistry and veterinary practices, financial and consulting firms, a school in India and a farm in Michigan.

To ensure the educational quality of their workplace experience, interns enrolled in the CCPD’s Field Experience Program agree with their supervisor on a learning contract outlining mutual goals and objectives for their summer together. They commit to regular structured reflection about their workplace experience, and they receive evaluation feedback at the conclusion of the internship. This summer, 63 interns are spending at least six weeks working with alumni professionals, Kalamazoo area non-profits, social justice organizations, and a wide range of independently-secured experiences across the country. Most Field Experience Program interns receive a stipend to help defray the costs of their unpaid experiences.

Externships and internships challenge students to apply theoretical learning to practical situations and to examine assumptions about work and careers. One current student mid-way through her internship described her summer work experience as “both gratifying and challenging.” She said, “In many ways this internship is not meeting my expectations and is showing me how off-base those expectations have been. These past three weeks have helped me rid myself of assumptions I held, and have given me new ways of thinking about how work at a non-profit can be done.”

The CCPD is already at work recruiting hosts and supervisors for summer 2014. Alumni and parents interested in offering a workplace experience to a student may contact career@kzoo.edu to request more information about becoming part of the Discovery Externship Program or the Field Experience Program.