What Students Say About Experiential Learning
Intership gave her an opportunity to network
Amy Ransom says she got so much out of her internship in the Catoosa County Ringgold, Georgia jail that she now knows she wants to pursue a career as a probation/parole officer. While interning at the jail in the summer of 2006, the Criminal Justice major assisted the dispatcher and court clerk and was introduced to prison security and on-line cases. She said the internship was a life-long learning experience where she worked with some wonderful professionals who were willing to mentor her. The internship gave her an opportunity to network with co-workers at the jail who have helped her with career advice and direction. Ransom would like to become a probation/parole officer with a long-term goal of going into criminal investigation. She is also exploring the juvenile justice system and the idea of becoming a juvenile victim advocate. She said she would encourage other students who are interested in her field to do an internship because, “you can have an impact on the public and society’s safety.” She is proud to be a Caldwell College Class of 2007 graduate and “grateful for the professors who shared their knowledge and expertise in the Criminal Justice Department.” During her college career, Ransom also played on the women’s basketball team at Caldwell for three seasons and started 61 games. She ran cross country for two seasons and played volleyball for one season. Now she looks to her future and applying what she learned in the classroom out in the work world. “I know that Caldwell College has prepared me to enter the professional life with the academics necessary for success.”
There's nothing like seeing your work in print
In the fall 2006 English and Education major Nicole Scimone ’08 interned in the Caldwell College Department of Media Relations and Advertising. Among her many duties, she was the editor of the student newspaper The Kettle; wrote stories for the Caldwell College web newsletter Insight and took digital photographs that appeared in Insight, The Kettle and New Jersey newspapers. She also assisted with an advertising photo shoot and in the production for a video voice-over recording session. As a result of her internship, she was able to attend a college newspaper seminar with students from around the country at The New York Times and she was interviewed on New Jersey Network (NJN) for a story that was covered on Caldwell’s campus.
One of her main responsibilities was to be the editor of The Kettle, the student newspaper which needed to be resurrected on campus. She created and organized a team of student writers, reporters and photographers, interviewed people and wrote stories, edited the copy for the newspapers, took photographs and worked with the layout company. “I learned real world communication skills and improved my writing tremendously, which will help me in my future career in English education. It allowed me to put what I have learned as a student at Caldwell to practical use in enriching our campus culture,” said Scimone.
The best part of the internship? “Getting my photographs and stories published in the Kettle on campus, in local newspapers and on the Caldwell College online newspaper, Insight.” She said that when she saw her first press release printed in the Caldwell Progress, “there was an amazing sense of importance attached to my writing for the first time.” She said, “There is nothing like seeing your work in print, available for the general community to see and react to.”
Scimone plans to pursue a career as a high school English teacher and she hopes to be the advisor on a high school newspaper. She wants to encourage other Caldwell students to pursue internships. “As an English and Education major, I was unsure at first how much this internship would help me, but I have come to see that the experience managing a group and writing in different styles will surely become an everyday part of my future career.” She also said she really enjoyed seeing journalism become real. “If a student is interested in becoming a journalist, interviews are absolutely necessary in order to obtain employment in prestigious newspapers, television networks and radio stations, and interning allows a student to meet people in the field who can be connections to the industry.”
She said she is grateful to the Caldwell College Office of Experiential Learning for their help with the internship. “Acquiring an internship was truly seamless and comfortable due to the hands-on involvement of the Office of Experiential Learning. Their high academic standards made the work I did worthwhile and challenging!”
Best part of internship was seeing "Their Great Smiles"
One of the best aspects of doing an internship is the fact that it helps you narrow the field in choosing a career path. Class of ’07 graduate Nicole Droz knows that. Droz had a wonderful internship working with preschool aged children at Wiggles and Giggles, a structured play program, but through the experience she learned that she is “more comfortable in the elementary setting.” She said, “If I did not work at Wiggles and Giggles I would not have noticed that that age level was not for me. I enjoyed it so much, but it was not what I am best at.”
At Wiggles and Giggles her days were busy. “I would have the children participate in a physical gym activity, as well as a music session and arts and crafts. The classes met weekly for 45 minutes a session. I dealt with about 12 children per class and 2 classes per day.” For Droz the best part of the internship was, “seeing the children weekly with such great smiles on their faces,” and being able to “see them progress in the activities they took part in.” She was able to get a better understanding of preschool aged children. “I picked up on parenting skills that will be beneficial for the future.”
She is using the skills she learned and her B.A. degree in Elementary Education/Social Studies from Caldwell to look for a teaching job in a grammar school. “I hope to teach children at the elementary level and help them learn to love school. I want my students to leave with a sense of self-respect, responsibility, and knowledge.”
Droz said Judy Casey in the Caldwell College Experiential Learning office was “more than helpful in getting my paperwork processed” and that she appreciated how “Judy was so eager to come see me and take part in what I was experiencing as well.”
She got her internship at Backpack to Briefcase day
Caldwell College’s Backpack to Briefcase Day was the clincher for Amrita Srivastava. It was the day she got hired for her internship working as an Expense Analyst in a Mutual Fund Accounting Department. She believes Caldwell College students need to make the most out of the opportunities that are available at Backpack to Briefcase Day. “I would like to tell students, to be very serious and focused when they attend our college’s Backpack to Briefcase Day and other career fairs around New Jersey.”
Srivastava, who graduated in ‘07 with a B.S. in Financial Economics and minor in Mathematics, had an unexpected opportunity arise during her internship. A co-worker went on maternity leave and Amrita was recruited to do “real work” on “real projects.” And real work it was. “I was responsible for issuing and processing invoices, updating budgets of 30 funds monthly, and ensuring the status of each expense was appropriate for all funds in the system.” She said she was required to become well versed with the accounting system used in the company and using Excel files to update budgets. “Updating each budget required processing information, collecting information from the system and online systems, and finally an analysis to understand what the changes were, and in which category did we overspend or under spend, and then finally readjust estimates for the rest of the year.”
During the internship she gained a little more clarity on what area she would like to work in. “It was good experience in the financial services industry. Although I did not find Mutual Fund accounting to be my choice of career in life, it has certainly helped me get a better understanding of accounting and finance.” She said,” If you don’t love what you do, at least you will learn what you don’t want to do, which is just as vital.” Internships, she said, “are essential in putting class-work into the right perspective, especially for business students.”
Upon graduation, Amrita was awarded departmental honors in Financial Economics for receiving the highest grade point average in departmental courses. A native of India, who has lived in China, Srivastava was the President and one of the founders of the Women in Business Organization at Caldwell College. She said she started the women’s business organization, “to encourage women (at the college) to take leadership positions.” Srivastava said the Caldwell College Business Department gave her a strong foundation for going out into the working world. “The Business Department at Caldwell was all about real life experiences, how to put yourself out there, how to sell yourself.”
Amrita will be working as a Business Analyst in a commercial business group for a financial institution. “I would like to get experience in as many different fields as possible in finance. I am not partial towards a particular area. One of my mentors once told me, ‘Stick to a job, as long as you are learning from it.’”
Making an Internship Work While Raising a Family
Renee Kraft, spent a semester interning at Catholic Social Services for the Diocese of Scranton. While being supervised, Kraft had the opportunity to do family, couples and individual counseling in a clinical setting. She worked two mornings and two evenings a week. “The internship really showed me that I had the ability to counsel effectively and that I fit well into the professional environment.” Kraft, a wife and mother of four children ages 8 to 24, had been in ministry for eight years when she enrolled in Caldwell College’s Continuing Education program at age 46. She received her B.S. in Psychology in spring 2006. “The Continuing Education program met my needs. It enabled me to meet the needs of my family and at the same time fulfill my own desire to obtain the degree,” said Kraft. In fall 2006 she will be studying in the Pastoral Ministry Graduate program at Caldwell College. She says she wants to use her degrees from Caldwell “to help people grow spiritually and to receive the level of healing that is possible when God is invited into the therapeutic process".