Profession-based learning internships help enhance students’ career readiness

Dec. 6, 2022 | By Karissa Rickman, communication assistant

Northwest Missouri State University profession-based learning (PBL) internships helped selected students gain hands-on experience within campus offices and enhance their résumés this fall.

Career Services developed the paid on-campus internship program to create opportunities for Northwest students to build workplace skills and encourage cross-departmental collaboration.

“Profession-based learning is a big incentive practiced throughout the University,” Travis Kline, the University’s internship coordinator, said. “The hope with these internships is that the tasks and projects students complete can be implemented in a professional setting.”

Five Northwest students – Aster Blake, Lexi Lyon, Naomi Daugherty, Alexis Kump and Kaylin LaMaster – participated in PBL internships this fall.

Aster Blake, a junior political science major from Warsaw, Missouri, is an intern for the University’s Policy and Civic Engagement Center (CPCE), an in-house institute focused on engaging students in policy- or civic-driven projects while providing practitioner-based experiences in political science.

Blake created election surveys, developed the training needed for administering the surveys and maintained contact with the state government staff to ensure guidelines for distributing a survey are followed.

“This internship has allowed me to use the practical skills I have been learning in my course work and being able to see how they can be applied to jobs that will be available to me after graduating,” Blake said. “It has been nice being able to see what I am learning can and will be used within a professional setting.”

Lyon, a senior agriculture business major from Winterset, Iowa, worked as an event coordinator intern for Northwest Career Services. She helped plan, organize and facilitate Career Services events, including the Local Job Fair, Speed Networking, Mock Interview Day, Career Day and PBL Palooza.

“This internship has made me think outside of the box and help me focus on better communication and on the little details of each event we plan,” she said.

Daugherty, a senior communication major from Greenfield, Iowa, worked in the School of Communication and Mass Media as an event planning assistant. She worked with Associate Professor of Communication Dr. Joy Daggs to plan and execute the Iowa Communication Association Conference in September. She worked on event registration, program design and outreach to hotels as well as attendees.

“I was able to gain experience in event planning,” Daugherty said. “Event planning is what I want to go into after graduating and having this experience will benefit me a lot after graduating.”

Kump, a senior business management major from Kearney, Missouri, was a process strategy analyst intern for the University’s Writing Center. She took responsibility for evaluating the business processes of the Writing Center, examining policies and procedures along with evaluating social media and marketing strategies to determine areas for improvement.

“Working for the Writing Center has benefited me by increasing my marketing skills and allowing me to stretch my mind to market the Writing Center with new, fun ideas,” said Kump, who graduates this fall and will begin work as a business development representative with Shamrock Trading Corporation in Dallas.

LaMaster, a junior financial computing major from Guilford, Missouri, is a software process and implementation intern for Northwest’s Office of Finance and Administration.

She assisted with the campus-wide rollout of a new software, creating processes to manage the software system’s users and manage workflow steps. She also was responsible for creating and updating guides for end-users and posting them to the MyNorthwest portal system in addition to creating training materials and assisting with training University leaders on the system.

“I have been able to improve multiple skills, including communication, organization and problem-solving during my internship,” LaMaster said.