Elon Oaks Veterinary Hospital doesn’t just offer animal care to town residents but it also lets university students get experience through internships.
The university offers a lot of internships through its Campus Alamance program and Elon Oaks is the closest to the campus. Students can easily walk to the hospital which can make working their eight-week internship easier.
Students get the experiences of working with animals and medicine. Vet Technician and practice manager, Alli Noger, said the staff treats interns like new employees.
“It is very helpful to have them, that extra hand to do some of the more basic things and then the more highly trained people can do more advanced things,” Noger said.
Dr. Kristina Belton, owner of the hospital said, “The interns learn the basics of how the practices runs and the basics of what a veterinary technician does.”
Since Belton was a high school science teacher before she was an animal doctor, she wanted to offer learning opportunities. She found having the internship program was a “natural fit” for her and wanted to help the next generation.
Elon Oaks has two Elon student interns – Sienna Alvarado, class of 2028, and Fernando Morazan, class of 2029. Alvarado is a biology major with a double minor in statistics and chemistry. Morazan, who was unavailable for an interview, is working for a degree in biology and neuroscience, and a minor in chemistry.
“It’s a really tight knit community here. So I just thought it was the perfect place and I love it,” Alvarado said.
Alvarado started as a psychology major but switched around her majors a lot. She was unsure of her career goals until she found an old letter she wrote to herself talking about her dreams of being a vet.
“Shadowing is really important in the veterinary field, so just watching all my coworkers, learning from them, communicating with patients,” Alvarado said, “There’s a lot more communication with humans than you’d think in veterinary medicine.”
Veterinarians can treat anything from domestic pets to farm animals but Elon Oaks typically gets cats and dogs. Alvarado’s favorite animal visit was a Xoloitzcuintli show dog that she described as “a naked dog.”
“The owner was showing us all of his little tricks and all of that,” Alvarado said. “I’ve never seen a show dog and what they can do. They are trained very differently compared to household pets.”
Not every Elon student has to take an internship. Alvarado not only wanted to do an internship but her academics fellows program required it. Only Elon University’s Love School of Business and the school of Communication require internships. These students chose to work over the summer and learn more.
Alvarado is also taking many science classes and will have a research project with the bio department. Even though it’s not dealing with animals she is still interested in learning more.
Alvarado said she hopes to get into NC State to continue with her vet school work. She wants to keep learning how to work with animals.
Sara Anderton
Sara Anderton is a rising senior who goes to Fuquay Varina High School in North Carolina. She wants to go to college for journalism and has been her school newspaper’s news editor. Along with journalism, she loves writing and studying other languages, especially American Sign Language and Hebrew. Sara has been FVHS’s ASL club president since sophomore year. She has also self-published two books on Amazon. She is passionate about education and sharing her creativity, which reflects in all she does. Sara enjoys volunteering with Together On Center Stage, a theatre group for people with emotional and physical disabilities. She also enjoys volunteering with Breakthrough T1D, an organization working to find a cure for Type 1 diabetes. These organizations are close to her because she has a father with Type 1 diabetes and deaf and blind friends. Sara cares for people, and her passion for journalism will help her expose injustice and take care of others.