INTERNS: Hands-on work provides real-life experience

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By Doug Schorpp | Monday, June 2, 2008 6:27 PM CDT | () comments

Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES -- Kathy Rodine of Bettendorf prepares meals of ground beef for hawks and other birds of prey as part of her intern experience at Niabi Zoo, Coal Valley, Ill. Rodine will be a senior biology major this fall at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant. Buy this Photo

Brad Higley will be handling two internships this summer — and he couldn’t be happier.

Brent Reck is interning with the Quad-Cities River Bandits.

Kathy Rodine of Bettendorf will be a senior biology major this fall at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant. She is interning at Niabi Zoo in Coal Valley, Ill.

Drew Griffiths of Port Byron, Ill., who will be a senior at the University of Illinois, is interning at Braidwood Generating Station.

They are among hundreds of area college students taking part in summer internships in the Quad-Cities and beyond.

For example, Deere & Co. is hosting 350 interns at its U.S. facilities. Of those, 122 will be in the Quad-Cities, said Amy Wagner, manager of college recruiting for the Moline-based manufacturer.

Other students have completed spring internships around the Quad-Cities. Among them are Ashley Taylor, who will be a senior at Augustana College in Rock Island, and Laura Campagna, who graduated last month from Augustana. They worked for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois in Rock Island.

Found his passion

Brad Higley, a 2000 Bettendorf High School graduate, tried other fields before finding his passion: being a physical therapist assistant.

“Right away, I graduated from Scott Community College and the second two years I went to the University of Iowa in communication studies,” he said.

After graduation, he worked as a salesperson, a personal banker and in insurance sales. He even did two summer internships with Merrill Lynch.

“After I graduated, I went into the financial world to help people. But I knew it was a numbers game. It was a life I did not want to lead,” he said.

He said those internships actually helped. “It’s not just as much that you find out what you want to do, but just as much what you don’t want to do.”

Now, he has finished taking classes at Black Hawk College in Moline. He will do clinical internships this summer, one at Heartland HealthCare Center, a skilled nursing facility in Moline, and the other at Trinity at Terrace Park in Bettendorf.

Countertops and cabinets

Kristi Bjorklund is a 2003 graduate of Riverdale High School in Port Byron who now lives in Davenport. She works full time as one of three designers at Kitchen Consultants in Bettendorf after completing the interior design program at Scott Community College. She realized her vocation while interning at Flick’s.

“I only worked in the interior design area for not very long,” she said. “I worked at Flick’s for my internship last summer and was taken under the wing of the manager of the kitchen area.

“There was something in the back of my mind. I grew up with my parents remodeling the house I grew up in. It took them 11 years to remodel. It’s a passion thing. I really get excited. I got to help out a lot and help my mom pick out colors.”

So, while at Flick’s, she naturally gravitated toward the area of designing and remodeling kitchens. “It’s a whole different part of interior design, completely different,” she said. “I absolutely love it. I enjoy it very much.”

Nuclear engineer

Drew Griffiths graduated from Riverdale High School in 2005. He is working at his third straight summer internship as a nuclear engineer major at the University of Illinois. Two years ago he worked at the Quad-Cities Generating Station in Cordova. Last summer, he went to Braidwood Generating Station southwest of Chicago. This summer, he is back there.

He has sampled a variety of jobs during the other internships, including as a systems engineer and plant engineer. This summer he is focusing on work management.

Griffiths’ first thought of such a career while attending Riverdale. “I went to school with a number of kids whose parents were managers or operators at the Quad-Cities Generating Station.

“One of the great things about my internships, it solidified my interest in doing this as a career. I got that in the first week. ... There are a number of things I have taken out of this. It does help with education. It frames what I am learning in the classroom. I know what not to spend time on and what is not as relevant.”

Numerous experiences

Anna Kalantari, a Davenport North High School graduate, finished up at Rock Island Arsenal last month, then began another internship at Quad-City Bank & Trust, Davenport, a few days later. This fall, she will be a senior at St. Ambrose with a double major in marketing and international business.

“I have been working in advertising and now I am trying to get my feet wet in the marketing field,” she said.

Her Quad-City Bank internship began in mid-May on a full-time basis. This fall, she said, she will be able to continue there as a part-time intern. “The internship is until December,” she said. “Then I probably will look for another internship before I graduate in May.”

Her yearlong internships at the Arsenal worked out well. “It was a real flexible schedule. I would come back and forth to the Arsenal when I had time,” said Kalantari, who worked in the finance and accounting department there.

“It let me know what it is like to work at a government position. It helped me gain business perspective of what the government does. It is completely different from what I probably will be doing in the future. But it was a great experience.”

From PR to corporate finance

Alicia Foley of Dubuque, another St. Ambrose student, is working this summer as a pool manager at Splash Landing in Bettendorf. She already has three internships under her belt, including one with the Moline-Coal Valley School District in 2006 that changed her life.

“I did a lot of (public relations) and marketing, working with press releases and was in charge of the calendar,” she said. “I found out in PR and marketing what I don’t want to do.”

Foley said she realized she is more of a “numbers” person. So she switched gears and her course of study. Her majors now are corporate finance and business management with a minor in accounting.

By the fall of 2006, she was interning at Bandag in Muscatine, Iowa, where she was a software organizer. “I learned what I want my boss to be, what to look for in a boss and what to look for in a mentor.”

She wrapped up another internship in May at Merrill Lynch in Davenport. “I enjoyed the culture, the overall position, everything about it. It was a great experience there,” she said.

She will graduate in December. Eventually, she wants to work as a broker or financial adviser.

‘Applying like crazy’

Last month, Brittany Griganavicius graduated from Augustana College in Rock Island and completed an internship at Trinity Regional Health System. Now, she is back home in Elmhurst, Ill..

At Trinity, she worked for the corporate communications department. “I have done media relations, event planning, marketing, advertising,” she said. Hers was a paid internship which provided her a stipend. She received college credit.

“Augie gets money for grants each year and you have to do a course through the school, do journals, make reflections and do research,” she said. In turn, she made $10 a hour.

Now that it is over, Griganavicius has been “applying like crazy,” trying to secure a full-time job. “I have applied for two jobs and should know” soon about those job possibilities, she said Thursday.

Doug Schorpp can be contacted at (563) 383-2292 or dschorpp@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.