Dozens of students at the University of Southern Maine gathered in the McGoldrick Center for Career & Student Success on December 8 to showcase their fall internships. From arts organizations to chemical engineering companies, aquaculture businesses, international diplomacy groups, and environmental science labs, students gained valuable experience, highlighting the ability of USM’s Career & Employment Hub to connect them with meaningful opportunities.
Thirty of the 68 students who completed fall internships, presented at the Career Exploration Internship Program’s Fall Poster Exhibition. The 22 internship sites included IDEXX, the World Affairs Council of Maine, Elmet Technologies, the Pelagic Fisheries Lab, Portland Buy Local and Sweetser. Across a wide array of fields, students gained real-world experience and unique learning opportunities to support their professional development.
Logan Vaughn, a USM senior working towards his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, interned with Elmet Technologies – an industrial and aerospace manufacturing company that creates custom metal parts and assemblies.
“From day one, they asked how they could make this the best experience possible for me. I told them what I wanted to work on, and throughout the semester, they really hit every mark,” said Vaughn. “They really care about making sure that you’ll be experienced upon graduation. It was a really memorable experience for me.”
Vaughn was tasked with electrical engineering work, as well as designing a testing process for the company’s manufactured tungsten. Although the experience was valuable for his engineering major, he learned more than just technical skills.
“I think the one big thing I’ve learned that I really didn’t think about before the internship, is how big communication is,” said Vaughn. “If you’re not good at talking to people, you can kind of suffer for that. Starting out, I really wasn’t that good, but I got better as time went on, and they gave me opportunities to improve.”
Vaughn has secured a spot as an intern with Elmet into his final semester at USM, and hopes to stay connected with the company through graduation.
USM senior and musical theater major, Karoline Brechter, took a chance on an internship that was beyond the scope of her major.
“I did a communications internship with Portland Buy Local, a nonprofit focused on encouraging the community to choose local first,” said Brechter. “It was really cool to do an internship totally different from my major, and I wanted to focus on social media because I manage the USM musical theater Instagram.”
At Portland Buy Local, Brechter took on the responsibility of managing the team’s social media. Working on Instagram, blog posts, Facebook, email marketing campaigns, and more, she discovered a new passion and potential career path.
“It was really cool because this is definitely something that I now know I want to pursue post-graduation,” she said. “I do want to pursue acting and musical theater full time, but another goal of mine is to create my own freelance brand marketing agency for actors. I want to help them discover and brand themselves, make resumes, websites, covers for their YouTube channels, Instagrams, all that stuff.”
Without this internship experience, Brechter isn’t sure she would have come to this realization on her own. Going into her final semester at USM, she plans to volunteer with Portland Buy Local simply for the joy it brings her, and hopes to carry the lessons she’s learned – as well as her talents and creativity – into her post-graduation move to New York City.
Vaughn, Brechter, and many of the other students presenting described their internships as experiences that helped them build meaningful connections, engage with new communities, learn more about themselves as professionals, and develop valuable skills.
When it comes to connecting students with internship or employment opportunities, USM’s Career Hub plays an essential role – ensuring students are paid during their internships, guiding them through the application process, and helping them build relationships with the right employers.
The Career Exploration Internship Program’s seasonal poster exhibitions provide students with the opportunity to share the knowledge and skills they’ve gained throughout their experiences with peers and mentors, and take those lessons into the world as they pursue their goals.
