The following post is one written by my former student, Caroline Robertson, about her summer internship. Caroline is starting a BA in Anthropology at SIUC this fall, having just completed several credits at LCCC. Read more to learn about her internship, which delves into the realm of environmental anthropology:
After meeting the president of Lewis
and Clark Community College at an awards banquet I was introduced to the idea
of applying for a summer internship with the National Great Rivers Research and
Education Center. The main focus of NGRREC is the preservation
and improvement of the water and its inhabitants of the upper Mississippi river
basin. Initially I was skeptical about applying for the internship. My chosen
field of study is anthropology, not biology or river and stream studies. My
knowledge in this field of study is quite low as I have not taken many classes
that deal with biology or ecology. Regardless of my initial skepticism I
decided to apply for the internship anyway considering that the president of my
college asked me to do so.
Three months after I applied for the
internship I received an email that I would in fact receive one of the
internships at NGRREC. The title of my internship is “Mississippi River
Education Programs: Addressing Adult Audiences.” My main duties for this
project is to effectively educate adults about the needs of the ecology of the
river. Also it is my job to find the best way to encourage all adults to take
care of the river and treat it with respect. This was initially very
challenging for me because I do not have any teaching or education backgrounds.
Then my professor, Dr. Boston, asked me to write a little blog on environmental
anthropology, compounding me to think of my internship in a different approach.
In order to succeed this summer, I must consider my internship as an
environmental or an ecological anthropologist. I need to be the mediator
between the people at NGRREC who already care about the ecology of the river
basin and the local citizens who are not aware of the needs of the river. My
goal this summer is to assess the ethnoecology of those who live and work
around the upper Mississippi river basin and find out how best to encourage
local understanding of the area. My tasks ahead are now put into a perspective
that makes them achievable.
NGRREC’s main purpose is to involve
the local community of the upper Mississippi river basin in the ecology of the
river and its tributaries. As stated on NGRREC’s website, “NGRREC employs
full-time environmental educators responsible for developing and delivering a
variety of comprehensive education and outreach programs that target K-12
students, formal and non-formal educators, and the public” (http://www.ngrrec.org/education).
People who live around the Mississippi river have surprisingly little knowledge
and awareness of how to take care of the river and treat it with respect. The
work of NGRREC has just recently been able to come to prominence in the local
community. With the building of NGRREC’s highly sustainable and efficient Confluence
Field Station, the organization is now looking to add some new programs to
their repertoire and expand NGGREC even more. My job this summer will be to
take the work of NGRREC’s researchers and convert their findings to public
knowledge, specifically, adult education. My assignment for this summer is to
create an event that, if successful, would become an annual educational event
to promote NGRREC’s work.
22 comments:
I want to do an summer intership as well bit i want to do it with culinary. Do you of a palce to go
Briana banuelos 102
TMCC actually has an internship program that you can go through and they'll place you with a local place for your internship. You should contact Marcie Iannacchione in the Re-entry Center at 673-7170 for more information.
I would love to do an paid Internship such as a work study, however they have requirements on GPA's and the like which prohibits many students from getting their hands on real life examples of their careers. It would also help relive some of the stress of college life as well as lesson a depressive state. Internships are a great way to be introduced to the real world and get some valuable experience for their resumes. A leg up if you will.
There are internship opportunities at TMCC that you may want to look into. Contact Marcie Iannacchione in Workforce Development. :)
As part of any degree, I believe the ability to educate others and reiterate what you have personal knowledge of is a great way to stay on top of your learning and be able to express those ideas in ways that you never thought possible. Anthropology is a great field of study that uses many different perspectives in order to understand many different things. I think the way that Ms. Robertson turned this intimidating project into one that she and the public can learn from was extremely beneficial. I continuously read my children, who are only ages 5-11, my college textbooks because I know they are going to ask me questions. Not only does this help me to learn, it also makes me think of different ways of explaining things, which most Anthropologists do everyday in their line of work. Diversity, being able to adapt and conform to other ways of learning and teaching is an extremely difficult thing to do, but it very helpful for the person doing the teaching and the others who are learning. This was a great post!
Summer internships are a great way to get a feel for what you are pursuing, career wise in the future. It enables us to get a hands of feel of what we might have be doing in the future if we continue to go down the career path we have chosen. This also helps us determine if our career choice is really for us, or if it was not what we expected it to be.
Internships are very important for getting into many fields. Entry level jobs now require several years of experience and it can be very hard to even get an interview without knowing people who already work there.
would you, Miss Boston, recommend getting an internship as soon as possible or wait until your junior year of college?
That depends. Many internships require you to be at a specific academic level prior to starting and ultimately completing them. This is in part because it ensures students are trained and are more likely to complete the internship since they have a little more experience in their studies.
But I do recommend getting exposure sooner rather than later, particularly if you have a sense of what you want to do as a prospective career. The primary reason for that is to determine if that field is ultimately what you want to do for the "rest of your life" or not. That experience, though, does not have to be gained through internships, but it can be gained through traditional employment or volunteering. For example, students who are considering occupations in medicine should work in the field in some way or fashion (e.g. Certified Nursing Assistant or in another capacity in a hospital or nursing facility). In the case of this student she was pretty sure that she wanted to go into anthropology but was also considering biology, so this internship really met both areas and allowed her to explore both. She ultimately decided on anthropology in part because of this internship. I have watched others take on similar experience (e.g. my first college roommate became a CNA as soon as she turned 18 in order to determine if she wanted to be a Medical Doctor, whereas someone else took on an independent research project to see if he wanted to become an academic). Both learned more about themselves and whether or not they wanted to continue down that path, so you ultimately do not lose out on gaining that experience. So to formally answer your question, you do not need an internship. I do, however, recommend getting some experience as early as possible to determine if what you want to do is ultimately what you really want to do (or not as the case sometimes ends up being).
When doing a masters degree with an internship do you have any preferences on attending a private or public university? Thank you.
I would love the opportunity to have an internship, but don't you have to have a certain GPA & a certain amount of credit hours to so? And how do you apply for an internship?
-Monique McAllister
Monique, you would need to speak with the staff at the Career Center for information regarding internships. They can direct you appropriately and match you with the best internship. :)
It's really awesome to hear what other students are doing to help in the anthropology field! Also was her event that she planned successful?
I would love the oppertunity to do an internship that specifically relates to my career, which is Sports Physical therapy. My grades have to improve a lot more but I know that I'll make it there.
Internships or getting a part-time job in your career field, if they provide that option, are an amazing way to get your feet wet in the field that you are wanting to pursue. This allows you to make sure that you want to do that career for the rest of your life. My senior year of high school I was a kennel staff at one of the local animal hospitals. That part-time job gave me an insight on the career field of a vet technician, and it help me decided that being a vet tech was not made for me but working with animals everyday was made for me.
--Kimberly Wilbers
I think it's a good idea to educate those who are not aware of the needs of the river. as far as taking an internship that you didn't start off being comfortable with I believe it made you step out of comfort zone and that builds character so it was a good choice to make.
apreshana page
I would love to do an internship. I think it'll be fun and that I will learn a lot of good helpful things. I feel like internships are very important for getting into many fields. - Alexis Buford
It can be very challenging teaching others the importance of things such as protecting water sources. I hope her internship was a success and she got the point across to the people in the community.
I can personally say that Internships are very important when deciding on if you want to see if you enjoy work in a specified career field. most times you will enjoy the job and continue to pursue a career however other times individuals will change their career completely. Entry level jobs now require several years of experience and it can be very hard to even get an interview without knowing people who already work there, making internships a necessary first step.
Internships are the best outlook in on what your trying to do. It will really show you if this job you hope to obtain one is for you or not. A lot of learning experiences come along with a internship. I hope she got a better education and understanding on rivers and such of that nature because i don't know anything about that at all, and i'm sure many other people don't as well.
With me doing two right now (kinda) I will be the one to tell you that it's very important especially in the competetive era we're in now. Most employers care about experience and nothing else. So with someone doing an intern ship i'm all for it! Paid or not.
I had never heard of the NGRREC before reading this. It sounds like that would be an interesting experience to get to help mediate between people who know about preserving the rivers and people who were not as aware.
Elaine Christopher
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