A four year program will provide five first-year students with paid internships in both for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Linfield’s career development department’s main mission for having the IMPACT internship is to allow the selected interns to take advantage of the resources at Linfield and to prepare the students for their future careers .

“We have seen the value of long relationships with career development among students, and created the structured program to formalize this relationship and financially support students who want to utilize internships as a professional development and networking tool,” said Kristi Mckay, assistant director of career development.

The internship will consist of a non-profit internship during the summer between sophomore and junior years, a for-profit internship the summer between junior and senior years.

Mckay said that the students will be supported with a $3000 stipend during the non-profit internship. They will also have all expenses paid for the students to travel to the conferences, which are also part of the program, near campus each summer.

The students selected were chosen early in the spring semester.  

“The top candidates are involved on campus, open to exploring different career areas, and embrace the opportunities that a Liberal Arts education affords them,” Mckay said.

One of those students is management major Chaylene Grover. Grover is a part of several campus organizations including participating in the First CLAS pre-orientation program, being president of the Resident Hall Association (RHA) and working in Student Affairs office.

However, Grover said that she was a little unsure of what the project would entail, but when she learned that it a presidential program she saw the extent of the internship.

“I’m so excited to be apart of IMPACT and I hope to be able to use my mentors and internships to the fullest to help guide where my future career will go,” Grover said.

On top of having a desire to the students also had to have a 3.0 or higher Linfield GPA.

All first-year students were provided information about the program. We also solicited student recommendations from faculty.