Biomedical Engineering at Liberty Hospital

How did you find out about your internship? 

Through my friends, mainly through Brayden Phelps. They kind of pointed me in that direction, and I thought that was the best way. 
I want to do an out-of-school program, but I didn’t know where to go.

What is your internship? What made you interested in your specific internship?

My internship is tech, specifically, design tech. My strand’s name is Digital media and design. Yeah, but recently, they changed it to digital media and tech, because there wasn’t enough tech kids, and I chose the tech brand. And I specifically chose that one because I thought it was a good medium between some STEM stuff I wanted to do in college and engineering. 
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go more into the science route or actual engineering, but I think through that program and through my internship now, which is at Liberty Hospital, and I work with a biomedical engineering department. It’s definitely safe to say I’d rather be an engineer. 

What has been your favorite thing about your internship?

Probably my instructors. Every internship’s different, but specifically at mine, we have a lot of guys in the same room. So everybody, all in the same field but all different specialties. We have some ventilators, some imaging guys, and it’s really nice to see the different paths in the same field and also get a bunch of mentoring from a bunch of super experienced guys. That’s probably my favorite part is the people, the instructors. 

Who has been your strongest support through your internship? 

My main support has been Christopher Huff. He used to be a professor, so he’s been teaching me super well, some basic electronic stuff and some wavelength stuff and a bunch of stuff from those machines. He’s super knowledgeable but super encouraging.

What are you hoping to gain from your internship?

I hope to gain an idea of what I want to do for college and then my career but also to get a better understanding of on-field work and what that looks like. We’re supposed to do PMs, which stands for preventative maintenance, and if you don’t do enough PMs, you don’t have enough machines for the building. And we’re behind on PMs by a couple hundred machines, so that was cool seeing the actual importance of the job. I feel like that’s something that’s super overlooked. I don’t think a lot of people think about it.

Help Desk/IT at Menlo

How did you find out about your internship?

My computer science teacher told me about it. It said, ‘Oh, this is pretty, pretty interesting, so I applied for it. 
And later on, we had an interview.

What made you interested in your internship originally? 


I’ve always been interested in software development, computer science and DIT pathways. So, it’s always been a good fit for me. It’s like one of my passions. 
So my internship is also IT, so it fits into my interests very well. 

What has been your favorite thing about your internship so far? 

My favorite thing, I’ve got to say, the free infinite snack bar. 
Oh my god, I’m in there every single day. Once I got my badge, I was in there every single day. But I also enjoy like the freedom we have in there. 
We, we pretty much just like work on our own. Well, it’s me and my other intern with me, and we just work together and just don’t get bothered that much, and we usually have like our little checkups, but it’s like that freedom that we have to like complete our work and just like enjoy our time there. 

Who has been your strongest support in your internship?

Strongest support would be my pip teacher, Ms. Haverman. She’s always there when I need her, like if I didn’t like something, she’s always there to fix it. She’s always trying her best to accommodate us and help us accomplish our goals in whatever we’re interested in. 

What are you looking to gain from this internship?

Experience, really, just honestly, experience, just the experience in the IT world will take you very far, in this, in this department. A lot of people don’t even get degrees or like go to colleges. They just get like a certificate or start an internship and then just get hired that way and they earn bank, they earn so much. So just right now, I’m trying to get experience, so I’m used to the office environment. 


St. Joseph Police Department; St. Joseph, Missouri

How did you find out about your internship? 

I was pulled into the LECSI garage that we have, the Sally Port. My previous instructor officer Hopper informed us that there was an internship opportunity in St. Joseph with their police department to do ride alongs and experience all the fun things that they have to offer, and I knew that I wanted to do it. 

What made you originally interested in law enforcement? 

I grew up around it a lot since my dad is a supervisor for the Kansas City Police Department. I’ve always been a fan of the culture and camaraderie that law enforcement has to offer. I’ve never been on a team for anything in my life. 
I was a figure skater until sixth grade, and I did theater until my junior year. My sophomore year I did NCC, and that was the first time I’ve ever been a part of a real team of people, and I truly wouldn’t want to do anything different. 

What is your favorite part about doing this internship and getting this experience? 

I get to experience all of the aspects of this specific police department, and I get to learn about their culture. Every single police department does things differently, and St. 
Joseph is a very colorful town. They have a lot of diversity, not only in their people and in their community, but also in their crime. They have pretty high crime rates, and chief Paul Luster is doing what he can to bring those rates down. 
And it’s really cool — awesome. 

What has been something that you wouldn’t say is your favorite part of being in this internship?

I’m going to be sitting in the records department of St. Joe, and that essentially holds all the police reports, crime scene photos and things of that nature. You’d think it would sound really interesting, but there isn’t really a lot to see there, and it’s not something I’m necessarily interested in, but it’s definitely a necessary function for a police department. 


Who would you say has been your strongest support in getting this internship and, you know, learning how to do what you’re doing? 

I’ve got two really big supporters through this internship. 
First one is officer Hopper. She’s the one who got us this internship. She has connections up in the St. 
Joe Police Department. So she made that connection, got them down to the Northland Career Center and had us interview for the position that I’m in. Then, my sergeant down there, his name’s sergeant Protzman, and he is fantastic. 
He’s a miracle worker and he’s funny. He gets the job done. 
He’s a hard worker, and he really has shown us what it means to be a good leader and a good police officer. 

What was the process that you had to go through in order to get this internship? 

I had to fill out a form given to us from officer Hopper expressing interest, and I had to upload a resume, answer a few questions about why I want to be in law enforcement. 
All the typical interview questions, and then I interviewed with the chief of police, which is Paul Luster. He’s awesome. Then, a week later, we got our results. 


What are you looking to gain from this internship? 

I’m looking to gain the best experience possible. There is a lot to learn about a police department and its functions. There are always multiple operations going on every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week in a police department. And it’s really interesting; it’s kind of like an ant colony. 
There’s so much going on at one time, and learning the intricate ways that everybody has to do their job is really what I’m looking to learn, even the things that often get overlooked, is what I want to see. 

Is there anything else you’d like to share with me about your internship?

I’ve seen a lot. I’ve learned a lot. Being able to talk to officers for four hours a day in that patrol car and see some of the community’s most vulnerable moments is really touching, and it’s really hard. That’s something that a lot of people don’t understand about police work is that oftentimes you see the the big, burly, muscly guy coming to your door, and typically police are the people who show up when something bad happens. What people don’t see is the crisis intervention that’s done. Dealing with suicidal parties,  dealing with the the civil custody battles and just talking tha young mom through how to get a restraining order. And taking those first steps, police officers are the people who are there for the community’s worst day of their lives every single day. And it’s really eye opening to see and watch and be a part of and a piece of advice I would give to anybody interested in seeing what law enforcement does, even if you’re not interested in going into law enforcement, you just want to understand is go on a ride along. 
You will see so much, and it will really change your outlook on your community.