Vinod Kumarappan, Paige Lettow, Diksha, and Lana Chaleunrath-Pham study physics. Courtesy | Paige Lettow

This past summer, students packed a suitcase and their liberal arts education to pursue internships as physicists, financial assistants, nonprofit consultants, and more. The Collegian asked three students to share their experiences, which ranged from fashion-trend forecasting to blasting molecules with lasers.

Sarah Trimbath, a senior studying international business and foreign language, worked as the global sourcing intern for the jewelry company  Kendra Scott at its headquarters in Austin, Texas.

How did you find your internship?

I became a campus ambassador for Kendra Scott my sophomore year of college. In that role, the company sent me jewelry in exchange for me posting about them on my social media accounts. Over the past few years, I reached out to various people at Kendra Scott via LinkedIn to learn about what they did.

Tell me about a task or project that challenged you.

I spent a significant amount of time working on creating our July forecast report. This forecast involves pulling data from merchandising’s open to buy and actuals data in order to track units and dollars sold, breakdowns by agent and direct partners, top styles by supplier, and country of production.

Why was the work you did this summer interesting or important to you?

I am interested in the intersection between global business and the fashion industry. My role as the global sourcing intern allowed me to learn more about both of these interests. Sourcing in particular is exciting because it is heavily impacted by the political and economic landscape of the world.

Junior and physics major Paige Lettow interned with the physics department at Kansas State University, located in Manhattan, Kansas. She worked in a lab using lasers to study how individual molecules rotate.

Why was the work you did this summer interesting or important to you?

This internship connected me with a lot of people in the physics community. It gave me a better idea of what grad school would be like. It also taught me more about physics and helped me discern what specific things I love about the field and what I want to pursue.

What was something no one would ever guess you did on your internship?

This internship was more than just the physics research. I was part of a group of students doing research at the college, and we did lots of fun activities from hiking in the Konza Prairie to learning to make homemade pasta.

What is a question people always ask you about your internship?

People always ask me why it is important to know about the rotation of individual molecules. The short answer is that it helps us to grasp a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics and how the world works. Studying something as small as individual molecules and seeing the intricacies of their motion is an amazing reminder of the great care that God put into the creation of the universe.

What was your favorite memory?

One weekend, a group of us woke up early and went for a long hike in the Konza Prairie. We had taken a tour of the area earlier, but it was nice to spend more time there, look at the wildflowers, and search for fossils and get to know each other better.

Cassandra Devries, a junior and economics major, studied European economic development at the University of Oxford, New College in Oxford, England, for four weeks at the beginning of the summer. Then, she was an intern at Bearing Tree, a financial consulting firm for nonprofit organizations in downtown Chicago.

Describe your day-to-day duties.

I completed an eight-week internship working with 42 nonprofits at Bearing Tree, performing key performance analytics, developing potential improvement opportunities, and consulting on key operational issues.

Tell me about a task or project that challenged you.

I spent a really long time trying to write an excel formula to organize my data only to find out ChatGPT could write it for me in four seconds. That was slightly obnoxious, but great to know for the rest of life.

What was something no one would ever guess you did on your internship?

During the opening ceremony of the Olympics, my coworkers and I all took our laptops to the common area and ate chips and dip and had the ceremony playing on the television while we worked. They were a really great group of people.

What is a cool thing you got to do outside of work?

In Oxford, the dining hall is the Great Hall from “Harry Potter” and eating there is incredible. However, I was kicked out of my first formal dinner at a different Oxford college. Despite being in a floor length gown, I wore sneakers, and the British require heels at formal dinners. ‘Twas quite posh. My sneakers and I had to eat McDonald’s that night.