Last Friday, students from the EEE internship class showcased their hard work and research findings at an event called Student Internship and Research Showcase (SIRS). Held in the PAC lobby, SIRS covered a variety of topics, from ecology to music.
Students manned posters outlining how their internship worked and what they learned. Senior Anmol Sethi spoke with viewers about her internship at the University of Missouri Veterinary Medicine Ophthalmology Lab.
“This year I got to work on my own experiment, [CD11b staining of raw cells.] A CD11b is a macrophage marker and macrophages detect pain,” Sethi said. “The point was to see which antibody would mark the most number of cells. So let’s pretend someone had glaucoma. We don’t want them to be in a lot of pain so we will want to use the best antibody.”
EEE internship instructor Kathryn Fishman-Weaver beamed while watching her students display and discuss their findings. She sees SIRS as an educational experience for her students, as well as a motivator to potential students.
“The goals are multifold. I think it is a great recruitment strategy because it’s really cool. It’s neat to see your peer doing something really cool and then thinking, ‘Goodness, I can do that, too.’ I also think that it is really in line with the mission of the class, which is to have authentic and applied learning experiences,” Fishman-Weaver said. “You are presenting to a real audience. When you are presenting to a real audience, that is also an authentic learning opportunity.”
One student, however, was not standing in front of a clean cut poster, ready to answer questions. Instead, sophomore Drew Webber sat with the University of Missouri Concert Jazz Band, playing the bass among the collegiate musicians. Webber opted for a less traditional internship, playing music as opposed to playing with beakers.
“It’s different for every kid. I ask a student to tell me what are they really interested in,” Fishman-Weaver said. “This is a neat opportunity to have in high school and I want it to be worthwhile. I want kids to spend time doing things that they are excited about, not things that are necessarily, ‘Oh, I should be doing x, y, z.’”
Webber was one of these students. He said finding his internship was easy and informal, and when they asked him to play with the jazz band, he was “on it like peanut butter on jelly.”
When thinking back on his internship, Webber believes the experience of playing with people who have in-depth knowledge on his subject of interest was the best part.
“I’ve become a much better musician and made a lot of connections with powerful people in my field and that’s really important in performance,” Webber said. “It’s good to experience the real world. We’re all spoon fed bureaucratic ‘common core’ nonsense for 12 years straight and I don’t feel like it really prepares us for what a real job is like. Internships give us the comfort of a high school setting while keeping it real with real responsibility and real work.”
[TS_VCSC_Image_Hover_Effects hover_image=”274319″ effect_style_type=”text” effect_style_text=”ts-hover-effect-jazz” effect_style_icons=”ts-hover-effect-zoe” effect_permanent=”false” title_text=”Jett Ballou-Crawford, senior” title_color=”#ffffff” content_text=”“I like working in the lab more than scanning things, but I know that in science you can’t just work in the lab all the time. You have to put in the hours and scan things. I learned what it’s like as a graduate student.“” content_color_text=”#ffffff” content_color_other=”#ffffff” content_color_icons=”#000000″ overlay_handle_show=”true” overlay_handle_color=”#2bb673″ hover_event=”none” hover_show_title=”true” hover_video_related=”false” hover_video_auto=”true” tooltip_html=”false” tooltipster_offsetx=”0″ tooltipster_offsety=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″][TS_VCSC_Image_Hover_Effects hover_image=”274337″ effect_style_type=”text” effect_style_text=”ts-hover-effect-jazz” effect_style_icons=”ts-hover-effect-zoe” effect_permanent=”false” title_text=”Inhan Kim, junior” title_color=”#ffffff” content_text=”“I helped Mizzou students find internships at different companies during spring break. Since I know about all these programs, I am able to take advantage of them. It is helping me prepare for college.“” content_color_text=”#ffffff” content_color_other=”#ffffff” content_color_icons=”#000000″ overlay_handle_show=”true” overlay_handle_color=”#2bb673″ hover_event=”none” hover_show_title=”true” hover_video_related=”false” hover_video_auto=”true” tooltip_html=”false” tooltipster_offsetx=”0″ tooltipster_offsety=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”0″]By Abby Kempf
Junior Shray Kumar interned at the University of Missouri Department of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Rajiv Mohan. During his time there, he stained eye cell slides, coloring various parts of the cells — such as the mitochondria — so he could then discern the parts of the cell affected by scarring. feature photo by Kathryn Fishman-Weaver
Additional photos by Devesh Kumar