During the fall semester, four seniors, Madison Poll, Lauren Walker, Nathan Jacobsen, and Bry Tobey had the opportunity to intern with local businesses through Cooperative Education. This work-based learning course, taught by Mr. Law, is part of the CDHS Career and Technical Education Program.
The internship program is an opportunity for students to gain experience in their field of interest, develop employment skills, explore pertinent college majors if going to college, and potentially determine a career path to pursue. Depending on where their internship is at, students can even get paid.
Last week, students concluded their internships by sharing their experiences and what they learned through class presentations. Additionally, some presented at the CDCSD School Board meeting on Monday.
Madison Poll interned at River Valley Cooperative, running the scale, and answering phone calls and questions. She said her favorite part of her job is working with her coworkers since they help make her work fun. Her internship has helped her develop customer service skills and has taught her how to handle unexpected situations through improvisation. She enjoyed the hands-on aspect of the internship to better help her understand the process by participating in it. After high school, Madison plans to go to Iowa State University for agricultural business or agriculture studies.
Lauren Walker has been working at CDHS as an Americorps Student Leader, and has been helping students plan and prepare for post-secondary options. She appreciates being able to help her fellow students and learn about their goals for furthering their education. Lauren plans to go to Lewis University for pre-dental, then to a dental school, so that she can become a pediatric dentist. She notes that working on her communication skills in her internship will help her prepare to work with patients in her future work.
Nathan Jacobsen worked at Crystal Creek. With the internship, he has far more and greater responsibilities than in the classroom as he is trusted to properly run large and expensive machinery. He hopes to someday be a crane operator, so working with the big machinery in the fields helps him practice for that occupation. Nathan believes in the internship's ability to teach good work ethic, which he explains is needed everywhere.
Bry Tobey interned with Central DeWitt’s Marketing Coordinator Laura Miers. Through the internship, Bry has photographed events, written posts for the school’s social media, and put together forms and other documents such as the #SaberSpotlight. Bry plans to go to the University of Northern Iowa for business management so that she can eventually run her own business.
If you are a CDHS student interested in an internship, please reach out to Mr. Law. Employment Strategies is a prerequisite to this class, but you can take it at the same time as your internship. This class takes up two blocks of a school schedule and counts for one high school credit. The only assignments outside of the work assigned by their internship supervisor are weekly discussion posts, meetings with their fellow internship students, the submission of hour logs, and an end-of-semester presentation. You can learn more at https://saberinterns.weebly.com/
Article by CDCSD Marketing Intern Bry Tobey who is a senior at CDHS.
