Seniors share internship experiences

During the summer, students across Augustana got the opportunity to work as interns in their field of interest to get hands-on experience in a professional work environment. 

Senior Sammie Kross is an environmental studies and anthropology major. She spent her summer at The Outdoor Campus with South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks assisting in coordinating events for volunteers. 

What was most interesting to you about this role?

What was most interesting was how much I got to engage with younger and older volunteers. As a volunteer coordinator intern, I got to interview volunteers, and I got to orient them. That was the first time for me to be on the other side of  the interview table, so that was really neat.

What were your day-to-day tasks like?

I’d always have to set up our volunteer room; that’s where the volunteers go every day. I’d make sure the schedule was written on the board so the volunteers knew what they were doing. If they’re coming in, I would set up the computer that they would sign in on. I would make sure all of our food and snacks were stocked for them, so they had somewhere to get food. When there were any openings I would usually hop in on classes, and I’d either help teach or just help the volunteers in assisting them.

How did this experience personally affect you?

I feel like I got to get to know a ton of different Sioux Falls residents. I really got to engage with younger folks who had been fishing or hunting their whole lives. I hadn’t fished since I was seven, so I was learning how to fish from twelve-year-olds. I think that the neatest part was getting to work with a multitude of ages and getting to learn from them.

What was your favorite part of your experience?

I got to plan and coordinate a huge party for all of the volunteers. We called it our end-of-the-summer party. I made individualized awards for each of the volunteers. I planned all these outdoor picnic games to play, and then we had our little awards ceremony. That was my favorite part because it was the peak of all the relationships I had formed with other folks.

Senior Prana Mohanty is a data science and computer information systems major with a minor in art. He spent this past summer in Denver, Colorado, with the mobile technology company Ibotta, designing features for their cash-back app.

What type of experience do you think you gained from this internship?

My takeaway was learning to specifically not get too much into, “I just want to get this code written and sweep it off.” Focus on more why is there a problem. What do I need to solve? What exactly am I to do about designing this feature? How is this going to have an impact? Thinking about the problem rather than jumping to the solution because you want to feel like doing something.

Did you ever face any challenges during your internship?

Imposter syndrome, that’s the biggest thing I would say. The more you talk to people, you understand that everybody has it. Everybody’s making it up as they go. The biggest part of it is understanding that it is common and normal to have something like that.

How do you see this experience helping you in future positions?

I would say this is a very important thing, gaining production-level code understanding of something that I want to do in the future. Writing your project is good, but when you’re working on a legacy codebase that has so many codes and so many things working together, you get a different understanding.

What was your favorite part of this whole experience for you?

What I like most about my internship is the challenge it presents every day. It’s exciting to see how production-level code works and how all the pieces come together in a real-world application. I also enjoy gaining exposure to the non-technical aspects of the business, such as how product decisions are made, how different teams collaborate and how we approach solving problems from both a technical and a business perspective. Plus, the collaborative environment at Ibotta has given me the opportunity to work with talented people who are always willing to share their insights and help me grow professionally. Also Denver! the public transport, food, art, nature. It’s an amazing city to live!

Senior Lara Matuck is a biology major with a minor in environmental studies. During the summer, she experimented with fermentation at POET, a biofuel company in their innovation research group.

How do you see this research influencing your career path?

This was the first time I did research in the industry. I would always think about research in academia, so that opened up a new career path for me. I’m considering doing research in the industry in the future.

What did you specifically do in your research?

We’re with different groups, and since I was with fermentation, I would do experiments with fermentation. We would get corn flour and we would change the variables to different experiments with the corn.

Do you have any advice for other students who might be interested in the same area as you?

If you think you want to do research, you can get experience on campus, but there are also other companies besides POET where you can work in the industry.