Izabella Perez, host: Hello, this is Izabella Perez, copy editor of the Tripodium, and today I’m here with Mr. Hopkins to talk about student internships. Okay, so, you handle all the business internships, right?
Noah Hopkins, business teacher: Yep
Perez: What are the responsibilities of a teacher who handles all that?
Hopkins: My responsibilities, especially when the semester first starts, is to help them get placements if they’d like to go into the community. There’s some students who stay in the school and they work in the Pawmart [the student run store] and we do different stuff, setting up all of that and different projects. There’s obviously some that want to go out and so coordinating with different businesses, different people and just making sure that they have good placements and knowing where they’re going to be at.
Perez: Ok, and how long have you been handling all this?
Hopkins: I started [as] this teacher – [laughs] – last year, and it was given to me last year, so I’ve had it both years that I’ve been here.
Perez: All right, and throughout your time, have you noticed any impacts your students have made on the community?
Hopkins: Yeah, so I handle business internships, yes, but there’s also career and community, so I also get tied in with some of the family ones, and so I have some people who go to Central Kansas Mental Health. They do a really good job, and I’m always told please keep sending people because they do a really good job and they help out a ton. So, yeah, I mean, they’re really helping out, especially the community interns do a really good job.
Perez: Yeah, and more about the community because I really want to focus on that. How do internships benefit both students and the community?
Hopkins: So students get, I think the internships just in general no matter where it is it is really good for you to get to go out and have a real world experience. But then, for the community, they get young people, different perspectives, that help out and just give some youthful energy, especially in some places that don’t have a lot of that. They really get to benefit from having a high schoolers perspective, I think. High schoolers are smarter than a lot of people think and they can really give you some insight on things that you don’t know and so having somebody that does that…
Perez: Do you think gaining all that experience helps them get a job in the future?
Hopkins: For sure, yes. Students having real world experience [inaudible], it’s basically like having a job because that’s what an internship’s like. It’s like having a job. You go and you have a job. It’s like school teaches us to be on time and everything, right? This is even like a next step. Be on time, be ready for this that you’re gonna have to do. So, yes. [While laughing] Also looks great on a resume, so…
Perez: And so I’m guessing you would recommend students should definitely take internships?
Hopkins: Absolutely, yes, for sure.
Perez: Ok, and if anyone was interested, who would they go to for that?
Hopkins: They go to their counselor. Their counselors will coordinate. Depends on how many classes you take. The younger that you are, even as a freshman and getting started, when you get started, you kind of choose pathways, what you might be interested in. If it’s business, you’d go in and take some business classes. If it’s community, you’d go take some of your community classes, [or] culinary, culinary are all over. And you’d take whatever classes in those fields, and then the last class in the field to complete the whole pathway is an internship. And so, if you want to be in an internship, go to your counselors kind of set up a plan to take all those classes in one area, and then in the end, you’re going and doing something.
Perez: So probably try to start as early as possible?
Hopkins: Yes.
Perez: Getting those classes?
Hopkins: For sure.
Perez: Ok, well I think that’s everything. Thank you so much for being interviewed.
Hopkins: Absolutely! Yep.
Perez: Thank you.
