By Seth Zimmerman
Think back to sixth grade. You’re an awkward teenager trying to find your place in the world, not very coordinated, and being involved in Model United Nations isn’t getting you as much street credibility as you had thought. Those are the memories that are flooding back during Shedd’s Summer Intern Presentations.
And I kid you not, this was a big deal within the organization. The conference room is filled with eager interns ready to show off the projects they spent the summer completing. Taking a lap around the room and you’ll see graphic designs for new habitats, a SWAT analyses, and tri-cut poster boards covered in graphs, charts, and scientific words I didn’t want to attempt to say out loud for fear of butchering them. These ridiculously smart kids had spent their summer making scientific contributions to the world.
But guess what? PR people are smart too. Visitors were treated to a top notch presentation showcasing all the publicity and press coverage of the great work being done at Shedd. That coverage came compliments of the PR team and their awesome interns. So while every other intern had one project, our project was to make sure that people knew about the other projects.
I have had many internships in my day and even had to manage my own intern at one time. It is not easy to run an internship program, but Shedd makes it look easy. The people that they bring in as interns really know their stuff. And the program itself is really well organized. They have weekly networking sessions, field trips to other museums, and training sessions to make sure that you leave Shedd with skills you didn’t have when you arrived. Do yourself a favor and apply for an internship at Shedd.
Is this end of my time at Shedd? Not at all. First off, I have some projects that need to be wrapped up. And second of all, I left my keys there.
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