The Campus Alamance internship program welcomed another set of interns for eight weeks this summer. The Elon Oaks Veterinary partnership helps the interns build community and learn more about the veterinary career path.Elon student Benjamin Munoz is gaining experience through this internship that he said will benefit his future career goals.
“I definitely want to be a vet when I’m older. This is a good start to get my foot in the door. It’s definitely nice that the doctors are so good at explaining stuff because I’m learning so much just by watching surgery,” Munoz said.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers research, approximately 70% of employers offer their interns full-time jobs, and for Munoz, building this professional network through the internship is an appreciated bonus.
“I hope to work here in the future. And I’m getting to know my co-workers very well too,” Munoz said. “It’d be like, a nice connection like this is a great way to make my professional connections and what I try to do in the future.”
The Campus Alamance program gives students the opportunity to apply skills that they have gained at Elon and work with the community through various community partners.
The Alamance internship spans for eight weeks, providing a unique set of benefits and drawbacks for those in the program.
“There’s a lot to learn in a small amount of time,” Munoz said “Especially working in a clinic, there’s so much stuff that you have to pick up on.”
Munoz also discussed the importance of a hands-on experience in an internship.
“I don’t like really sitting around doing nothing,” Munoz said. “So it’s nice because I get to go from appointment to appointment, shadow doctors, see surgery and learn a lot of things at the same time.”
Practice manager and registered veterinary technician Allison Hall helps structure the eight weeks for the Elon students with tasks the students need to fulfill in order to learn the basics of veterinary medicine.
“It’s getting some of that basic knowledge about how to handle the animals kind of how the workflow and a general practice veterinarian works,” Hall said.
The Elon Oaks Veterinary also held internship programs outside of The Campus Alamance program, allowing even more students to work directly with the veterinary hospital.
A previous Elon University student, Claire Hess, interned at the Elon Oaks Veterinary Hospital for three months before pursuing vet school.
“It was really fun, I started on the mornings, so I would see the surgeries, which was really interesting to me because not a lot of people get to know exactly what goes on when their pets go in for, like a standard procedure and stuff,” Hess said.
The opportunity to participate in this internship allowed Hess to take part in emergency cases and eventually influenced her to pursue an appointment-based position.
Being hands-on throughout the internship pushed Hess to pursue veterinary school. She will be going to Harcum College in Pennsylvania to get a veterinary technical degree.
Munoz is hoping to benefit in many ways after he is finished with the eight-week internship period.
“I’m learning how to apply those things that I learned in class in a real life setting,” Munoz said. “So it was going to help me in the future as well.”
Isabelle Anderson
Isabelle Anderson was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and currently lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A rising senior at Ronald W. Reagan High School, she discovered her love of digital media at a young age, entertaining family and friends with PowerPoint presentations, and has since shifted to Adobe apps, favoring Adobe Illustrator. She’s been a year-round swimmer for the YMCA since she was young and is a member of the Reagan varsity swim and dive team, specializing in butterfly. She has a fierce love for reading and is an avid book collector, which has inspired her love for creative writing and understanding how people interact with each other and the world around them. She also enjoys spending time with friends and listening to and creating music. Isabelle is interested in pursuing a career in marketing communications, but she has interests in many aspects of the communications field.
Jumana Alsaadoon
Jumana Alsaadoon was born in Damascus, Syria, and raised there until she was 9 before immigrating to Harrisonburg, Virginia. Now, she is a rising senior at Harrisonburg High School, where she is captain of the speech team, founder of an advocacy group called Girls Association and vice president of the Equity Student Association. Alsaadoon is passionate about international relations and journalism. During her junior year, she was the editor-in-chief of HHS Media’s website, which she redesigned and for which she reported on global and local issues, such as book banning, a paper genocide and protests. In her senior year, she will run the newspaper, website, broadcast and yearbook of her school’s publication. She plans on pursuing journalism in college.
Katelyn Ranheim
Katelyn Ranheim was born in China and adopted at the age of 4. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and attends Leesville Road High School. She is an editor of the literary magazine, The Crescendo, where she assists in assembling a spring and fall magazine edition of poetry, prose, writing and artwork from her fellow students. She is an active member of her high school symphonic band, in which she plays the euphonium and was awarded the Noah David Spivey Heart of an Overcomer Award as a first-year student. Outside the classroom, Katelyn enjoys working as a summer camp counselor and childcare provider, reading, horseback riding, and spending time with her family.