Interns Season 1

[Finley Chopin]

Everythingkind of clicked after that. I liked seeing how everything in the ecosystem was connected and, because my Dendrology professor, Dr. Peter Pekins, was also my Wildlife Ecology professor, I had a well-rounded view of the interconnectedness of the world. My previous school had Horticulture as a minor, but in an attempt to immerse myself further I went looking for an internship that would build upon the knowledge I had already possessed. This led me to The Greenway and the Greenway Conservancy, and to one of the most rewarding and influential experiences I have had in my life.

As the days get longer and Colorado employers start staffing up for summer, experts from the new Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) program are out in the community to explain how the program will work for temporary and seasonal employees.

FAMLI experts met recently with Colorado members of the Society for Human Resource Management to answer questions about FAMLI requirements. Meeting at the Colorado History Museum, one of the top questions from Mile High SHRM members was about summer interns and other seasonal workers.

So if an intern comes from out of state and earns less than $2,500 over the course of the internship, that intern would not be eligible for FAMLI leave. After earning $2,500, an intern would be eligible. They would also be eligible if they had earned $2,500 in wages from any job in Colorado during the base period before they apply for FAMLI benefits. The base period we use to determine FAMLI benefit payments is roughly the year before a FAMLI leave period would begin.

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.

Having an intern in your organization can bring many benefits: an additional set of hands to help with projects, fresh perspectives on old problems, and an opportunity to test new talent. However, if expectations of the intern are not established at the beginning of the internship, both parties - intern and supervisor - can end up disappointed in the experience.

For those of us who have worked for our employers for more than a few months, we have generally figured out what communication channels are used in our offices and how different people like to use them. Some work environments use platforms like Slack, some are all-in on Google products, while some use a mish-mosh of tools out there. Throw in project management tools like Asana and Monday.com along with generational communication preferences, and people like me are using Gchat, text, email, phone, and just-walk-down-the-hall-and-ask-the-question all in the same day, if not the same hour.

One way to ward off conflicts like these is for interns and their direct supervisors to write and sign a Communication Agreement. Communication agreements outline what channels the intern and the supervisor will use to communicate (text, Slack, etc.), what hours are acceptable to communicate within, what turnaround response is expected from both parties, and what meetings the intern is expected to participate in.

Below is a screenshot of a Communication Agreement I have asked students to sign in the past. It is specific to what I expect of students and their supervisors to discuss, but can be customized to meet your own needs.

Each year, UMS and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance select students for a unique internship experience. Students are paired with internationally renowned artists and companies, including dance, theater, and music ensembles.

Tyler Simpson Pouncy (he/they), from Cerritos, CA, is a 3rd year at the University of Michigan studying Instrumental Music Education (BM) as well as Ethnic Studies (BA). Being a Black and queer instrumentalist, they have always prioritized the intersection of identities through the intersection of various art mediums. As an arts leader, they believe that the communities should be able to have artistic experiences even if for a brief glimpse of their life.

With a passion for uplifting other artists and collaboration, Tyler continues to make interpersonal connections through artistic spaces via the unifying language of music. In a time where diversity should permeate all walks of life, he wants to be in the push for inclusive frameworks of the whole picture.

Our students are your future employees. Help launch the careers of thousands of students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools.

Internship providers: please register your on-site and/or remote internship openings.

My first project as a summer intern was to help to collect data from hundreds of Illinois MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) reports that inform the urban stormwater sector of the NLRS Biennial Report. The larger report discusses strategies that statewide organizations are taking to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus making their way into Illinois watersheds. These nutrients eventually make their way to the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico where they cause a massive hypoxic zone, which has deadly effects on the environment there. With a vast amount of land in Illinois being either urban or agricultural, reducing the amount of nutrient runoff is vital to saving aquatic life and keeping healthy soil in place.

It was super interesting to read these reports to see what different Illinois municipalities are doing to mitigate nutrient runoff. These strategies include physically substantial things such as erosion control or street sweeping. However, it also includes things like outreach, which is so important to teach residents, young and old, about the importance of environmental concerns. In some cases, that outreach includes elements of fun.

The Red Oak Rain Garden has changed my life for the better and I am so appreciative of it and Director Eliana Brown and Assistant Director Layne Knoche, for teaching me so much, believing in me, and helping me to grow into my best self. None of this would be possible without them. I hope others can see what an asset having these people and this rain garden is to the University of Illinois campus.

I hope others can learn from it and love it at least a fraction of what I do because that would still be a whole lot. This ending is just the beginning of a better season of my life with this wonderful rain garden.

When the internship began, I met with Eliana, Layne, Angela, and all the other IISG interns and supervisors. Nearly every week, we met to discuss different topics, including job searching, writing an elevation pitch, and communicating science. Through these meetings, I gained a deeper understanding of career development to be ready for my future career.

For the first half of the summer, I assisted with data gathering from annual stormwater reports (MS4s). I started earlier than my colleagues to help rename files to streamline the search process, which proved helpful as the summer progressed. Every day, we interns were assigned to different counties to read and seek data that informs an analysis for the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy (NLRS) Biennial Report. It felt like important work to ensure that NLRS partners know what is being done by stormwater professionals to ensure human well-being and ecosystem integrity. The NLRS has been a scientific interest of mine for a long time, and I am excited that this professional internship experience has provided deeper insight into the topic.

For the second half, I performed literature searches on soil infiltration and compaction under drought conditions as well as responses of native plants to drought. Since June 2023, drought has occurred extensively throughout Illinois and Midwest, negatively impacting some plants at the Red Oak Rain Garden and other places. Therefore, I sought information about how drought affected soil properties and plant growth as well as the potential solutions. I have been doing soil research since my junior year, and I was excited to assist in this interest area. I found useful information that can be potentially utilized for further research and future testing. In this way, the research I have been doing for the second half of my internship will have a lasting impact.

Research has been a large portion of my undergraduate study, and this internship has taught me how to combine literature reviews and synthesize information for further analysis. In the future, I plan to attend graduate school to research soil and water management. I am thankful this summer internship provided me such a unique opportunity to become more familiar with this topic.

Finally, this summer internship has developed my communication and time management skills. I asked questions on anything I did not understand clearly so that there were no misconceptions between me, my colleagues, and my supervisors. In addition, I created a schedule that assisted me with tasks I needed to do every day so that I could complete them in a timely and orderly way. This internship really trained me on how to be more independent, communicative, and effective.

For the future, after going to graduate school, my long-term career goal is to plan to be a soil and water research scientist. Specifically, I would like to immerse myself in scientific research in this area. I have gained many research skills and learned significantly about soil and water ecology from different kinds of research and courses. However, there is still a long way for me to reach that step. I still need to learn how to create modeling and learn more statistical skills. I plan to utilize the skills I learned in this internship in graduate school and in my future projects.

Looking back on this summer, working with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) has brought me so many fun memories. I have had the chance to meet so many wonderful people and work in what I am passionate about, while also making a positive impact on the environment. After all these fantastic experiences, it is hard to believe that this summer is ending.

3a8082e126