Kaley Ware (on screen) joins a panel discussion about internships with (from left) Angela Truesdale, Janiah Henderson, Kel Gruber and Andrew Price during a Chancellor’s Council meeting Feb. 21 in the ED Collabitat. (UMSL photo)
When Kaley Ware wasn’t leading tours through the United States Capitol and Library of Congress last summer, she often spent her time researching policies on energy and natural resources. Her work even helped inform debate in the U.S. Senate.
Ware, a senior majoring in economics at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, served as an intern in the office of Missouri Senator Josh Hawley while taking part in the Pierre Laclede Honors College’s Washington, D.C., Summer Internship Program.
“The main thing that really stood out was how neat it was to be able to take those in-class experiences and just really apply them to my internship,” said Ware, who cited the public speaking and research skills she has cultivated and refined at UMSL while pursuing her degree. “It was an incredible experience.”
Ware was one of five UMSL students discussing their internship experiences as part of a panel at the quarterly meeting of the UMSL Chancellor’s Council held last month in the ED Collabitat on South Campus.
Accounting graduate and current master’s student Angela Truesdale, computer science master’s student Kel Gruber, junior psychology major Janiah Henderson and senior sport management major Andrew Price also took part in the dialogue, describing for UMSL advisors and supporters the impact of their own internships and the ways the university helped make them possible.
“Academic internships, they represent something we call high impact practices,” said Steven J. Berberich, UMSL’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, who moderated the conversation. “Research has shown that high impact practices have positive effects, leading to higher grades, better student retention and improved academic achievement.”
In some academic programs, internships are a required part of the curriculum – think student teaching opportunities for education majors, practicum experiences for social work students or clinical rotations for those in the College of Optometry or College of Nursing.
But students in every discipline can benefit from learning outside the classroom in real-world settings.
“My internship at Boeing last summer was awesome because I got to work in government overhead allocations, which is everything that I learned but in way more detail in managerial accounting,” Truesdale said. “I got to apply directly what I’ve been learning and teaching in the classroom to actual overhead allocations. It was fascinating.
“I also got to do lots of awesome production tours of the really cool planes that we build here in St. Louis, and I got to network with individuals in St. Louis, finance centers around the country and interns – both business and engineering – spread out all across the United States. It greatly developed my network and my practical skills.”
Gruber has an internship working as a research assistant at the Geosciences and Artificial Intelligence Applications Lab, which is a partnership between the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and other U.S. government scientists and academia that aims to leverage the power of AI in solving challenges.
Her background had been in fine arts as an undergraduate, so the opportunity to gain hands-on experience has been especially beneficial.
“I wanted to work on some real-world data sets and some real-world problems and kind of get a feel for what I could do,” Gruber said. “This internship has been a great opportunity to work with scientists on their actual projects. Working on an interdisciplinary team has been the other huge benefit. I don’t just work with other computer scientists. Now I work with physicists and geotechnical engineers and other geoscientists, and it’s been a really good experience.”
Internships are an essential part of the experience in the sport management program, exposing students to a wide variety of opportunities to work in the sports industry. Since last spring, Price has worked in UMSL’s Department of Athletics, as a ticket sales associate with the St. Louis Cardinals and as a platinum sales administrator at Topgolf’s Midtown location, and soon he’ll be working as part of the event operations crew with St. Louis CITY SC and as the ticket operations coordinator at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.
“One benefit of all these internships really is networking with the industry professionals that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with,” Price said. “A second thing is getting the name of UMSL out there. The sport management program started about four or five years ago, and lots of industry professionals are starting to know the name UMSL now. I’m glad to be one of the people that are able to represent us.”
Students who get an early start gaining internship experience are often better off because of it.
Henderson had low expectations when she applied for the Honors College Washington, D.C. Summer Internship Program last summer because she was still just a sophomore. But she was pleasantly surprised when selected, and she wound up working at the International Child Art Foundation. She had a chance to see what it was like working for a nonprofit and with coworkers from around the country, and she found the passion of the people she met to be inspiring.
“It wasn’t just academic skills that I learned, but I also learned some general life skills, like traveling independently, navigating public transit – that was a big deal for me too,” Henderson said. “I just really enjoyed it.”
Through the program, Henderson also had a chance to meet UMSL alumni working in different fields in Washington, D.C.
Alumni and other supporters often play an important role in identifying the needs and making the connections between organizations and the university that make internships possible.
Berberich encouraged those in the audience to do their part to foster those relationships and help support students.
“I think you can see these students are quite impressive,” Berberich said. “It’s your connections in helping us find other internships and it’s the resources that help these students be successful.”
