Choosing a career to pursue is one of the most important and most difficult decisions for a person to make. One of the biggest concerns is not fully understanding what the actual job environment will be like. For most students, they don’t fully understand this until college, but South has teamed up with a few local businesses to offer student internship programs.
South currently offers medical, culinary, business, teaching and community internships that students can take if they have taken certain prerequisites. Internships are reserved for seniors. In a survey sent out to all student interns, all 25 who responded said that they would recommend other students become interns.
All internships take place during the school day and are established with counselors and the teacher in charge of the specific area the internship would fall under. The teachers in charge of internships are Medical Investigations teacher Melissa Mahoney, culinary teacher Linda Edson, business teacher Noah Hopkins and family and consumer sciences teacher Kiley Massey.
Community internships offer the widest range of opportunities and are arranged by Hopkins. If a student wishes to be an intern, but the other programs do not offer something the student is interested in, the student can become a community intern where an internship is arranged with a local business.
Politics
Jose Pinedo (‘26) is a community intern. Pinedo has been interning with the Salina City Building Advisory Board as a youth member since the beginning of this school year. He became an intern to see how changes are made in the community and get something close to a real life experience.
“It has given me the opportunity to see how real life changes happen because we always talk about Congress and all that, but we don’t ever talk about the local things. It has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of important people locally,” Pinedo said.
As a youth member of the Salina City Building Advisory Board, Pinedo is able to read legislation under review by the board and ask questions about city governance. He has a simulated experience of being an actual board member except he is not able to officially vote on city legislation.
Pinedo said that the internship is a great way for him to make important local connections, especially as he is considering going into politics later in life.
Psychology
Hannah Miller (‘26) is also a community intern, but her internship is very different. She has been interning at Central Kansas Mental Health Center during 8th block since the beginning of her senior year. She started interning there to try and figure out more specifically what she wanted to do after high school.
“I went into an internship with mental health because I knew that I wanted to do something with mental health. I just didn’t know what specific thing, so that’s why I did the internship,” Miller said. “Especially with mental health, there’s so many things that you can go through and seeing that in person is different than just being like I can deal with that it’s fine.”
At her internship, Miller mainly shadows behind therapists and social workers to understand what those specific professions would entail. Miller has also shadows behind care coordinators in charge of getting patients in contact with other places that can help them with their mental health.
Miller believes that the internship has been beneficial for her in figuring out what she wants to do more specifically after graduation.
Human Services
Analeigh Draper (‘26) is a community intern for Catholic Charities thrift shop. Draper has been interning with them since the beginning of senior year. She started interning there to get experience in the field she is planning to go into.
“It has definitely given me an opening into the human services area and so I’m hoping that that helps me stand out against other students and applicants as I go out into the world,” Draper said.
Interning at Catholic Charities means that Draper is mainly sorting through donations, although she does occasionally work the counter as well. She described the work as monotonous, but fun.
Draper believes that her internship has been a great opportunity for her .
Teaching
Community Internships are not the only type of interns that go out into the community. Ruby Hassler (‘26) is a teaching intern and has been interning at Building Blocks Daycare since the start of the semester. She said she became an intern to see if the career is something she would actually be interested in and to get the experience of working with kids before graduating.
“I love the teacher, so I got to connect with the teacher and ask more about the career and learn about it through that way. Then the kids are just really awesome and fun, so it’s a different kind of experience. Not exactly what I expected either,” Hassler said.
At her internship, Hassler mainly works with the kids. Sometimes she helps them practice writing or counting and other times she plays games or colors with them. She said that it is mostly playing with the kids.
For Hassler, she believes that being an intern has given her the practice to figure out whether or not she actually wants to be a teacher.
Intern opportunities in school
Students do not have to leave for their internships either. If a student wishes to be an intern but does not want to leave during the school day, the coffee bar and Pawmart are run by culinary and business interns respectively. All internships have required prerequisites so it is best to speak with a counselor early to stay on track.
