Internships: K-State First
Intern: Joseph Turner, 2nd year Graduate Student, English
Faculty Supervisor: Greg Eiselein, Professor, English
Course: ENGL 797
Semester: Spring 2018
K-State First is K-State’s first-year experience program. It offers seminars and learning communities to help first-year students establish a foundation for their success in college. As a K-State First intern, Joe worked on developing and reorganizing Canvas resources for K-State First faculty. These resources assist new faculty members in planning courses, developing syllabi, and teaching and interacting with students. Joe organized these resources into manageable categories and in the form of questions, so new faculty can easily navigate to the areas they need help with and skip over areas they don’t. In addition, Joe assisted with various K-State First activities: coordinating a Beyond the Classroom event that helps students recognize the value of a humanities education; interacting with prospective students at Junior Day, a day for area-high school juniors to tour the K-State campus; and hosting out-of-town professors and colleagues who visit K-State First.
Joe enjoyed his work at K-State First and found it an incredibly welcoming program. People work as a cohesive team, and all is willing to help answer his questions. “They want you to feel a part of that team from the first day,” Joe said. The sentiment is mutual. As Brent Weaver, Joe’s supervisor at K-State First, put it, “It’s been a delight working with Joe. K-State First internships are incredibly flexible around the student's interests, so it's been great seeing him design the Canvas resource page in a way that he feels will be useful for instructors in our program. Despite how busy he is, Joe always manages to find time to work on his project because he recognizes how important it will be for our instructors--and that this project has a real-world application.”
During the internship, Joe networked with people he said he never would have met just being a graduate student on campus. Joe also gained insight into the amount of work it takes to run a large university program. “K-State First has a far reach at the university, from Housing and Dining to Deans of College of Arts and Sciences, just to name a few. They do this to make the experiences of students as best as they can possibly be.”
For fellow English students who are considering internships, Joe has this advice: “Take every opportunity to find one; take an internship and run with it as far as it will go. Anybody with any apprehension about how to apply English skills in the job-market will feel much more at ease if they are afforded the chance to apply the skills while still in school.”