{"id":17664,"date":"2022-03-14T08:37:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T08:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=17664"},"modified":"2026-04-16T21:34:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:34:48","slug":"interns-to-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/03\/interns-to-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Interns to employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gone are the days of interns fetching coffee and picking up dry cleaning. Interns today gain valuable work experience while making a tangible impact. And they may even lead to a job offer.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this two-part series, students from the Class of 2022 share how they turned internships into full-time jobs.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>Freshwater Society<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: a nonprofit dedicated to preserving freshwater resources.<br>\n<\/span><b>Olivia Forshe\u00e9 <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Milwaukee, Wis.)<br>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Environmental studies major, with a psychology emphasis<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>How did you find the internship? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Career Exploration staff and Macalester faculty were crucial in my internship search. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When looking into internships for my Environmental Leadership Practicum course in fall 2021, I had in mind a moving presentation from my Environmental Politics and Policy class. John Linc Stine from Freshwater Society had come to talk to our class about environmental policy. When I applied for their internship, I reached out to him directly to reintroduce myself and demonstrate my interest.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>What will your full-time job look like? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will help Freshwater carry out authentic community engagement with rural and BIPOC communities all over Minnesota to gather input on revising the 2020 State Water Plan. This will help the state better allocate resources to the environmental and water issues that matter most to vulnerable communities. I look forward to working to enact meaningful change in the environmental policy sphere.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>Advice for making the most of an internship? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Advocate for your needs. This can be hard in an entry-level position, but speak up if you are struggling with a task or a deadline. Speak up for the type of work you like to do. If you are ever in need of mental or emotional support, reach out to a coworker or boss.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17684\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-1024x575.jpg 1024w,  https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-300x169.jpg 300w,  https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-768x432.jpg 768w,  https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-1536x863.jpg 1536w,  https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/653\/2022\/03\/Intern-Gabi-2048x1151.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><b>Travelers Insurance<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: Business Insights &amp; Analytics Leadership Development Program<br>\n<\/span><b>Gabrielle Isaac-Herzog<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (Philadelphia)<br>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Geography and classics majors, with an English minor<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>How did you find the internship?&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I applied through Handshake, which Macalester uses for job postings. I was nervous about the technical portion of the interview, so I met with John Mountain in Career Exploration. He took me through some practice questions and told me what to expect. My best friend and roommate also works in Career Exploration. She tore my resume apart and put it back together beautifully.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>What was your role?&nbsp; <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because it was a leadership development program, I did a lot of training, which was great. I felt like I was being paid to learn. There was also a lot of networking. I spent a couple of hours every day having conversations with people involved in the geospatial world of insurance. I learned how to use SQL, a database manager. To help with the pricing of insurance plans, I mapped and analyzed the results of a risk model for wildfires.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>What are your long-term career goals? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My heart is torn between the modern and fast-growing technology of GIS and data analytics\u2014and reading ancient texts. This year, I\u2019m doing a lot of work in ancient texts. My honors project is about the Bible, and I might go to rabbinical school at some point. I spent a lot of time talking to people in Career Exploration, particularly Kate Larson, about the idea of a career arc and short and long-term goals. One of my primary goals leaving college is financial security, and Travelers offered me that. I really love doing GIS, and I\u2019m excited for the learning opportunities that I\u2019m going to continue to have.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><b>Advice for making the most of an internship? <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Always ask questions; you don\u2019t have to know everything. Both my internship managers said, \u201cGoogle is my best friend.\u201d It\u2019s easy to feel imposter syndrome, but everyone has been in your place. They got to where they are now through asking questions.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two students from the Class of 2022 share how they turned internships into full-time jobs.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17664"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30731,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17664\/revisions\/30731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}