Seniors at Gorham High School (GHS) wrapped up their two-week internship on June 4. Over the course of their 36-hour experience, seniors worked closely with community businesses and organizations to gain valuable on-the-job perspective and skills in a career they may pursue after high school or college.
This year, seniors interned with a wide range of businesses, including: Skolfield Sports Performance, 320 Ink, IDEXX, Flowfold, Atlantic Dance Arts, Village Physical Therapy, and many more. Seniors explored career interests ranging from interior design to civil engineering to speech pathology to law enforcement.
At CWS Architects, Sydney Fox was tasked with designing a beach house. She was invited to draw a floor plan, select design concepts, themes for each room, and was given the opportunity to choose interior materials like flooring, paint, and lighting. Fox then underwent a rigorous feedback process with her internship hosts.
As an intern with a beekeeper, Katy Morin witnessed a queen bee hatch in her hands during a tour of hives throughout the state, which included a stop at the governor’s mansion.
Richard Jiang learned the ins and outs of hotel management at Stone Ridge Lodge where he was immersed in tasks ranging from reception to landscaping to online billing.
At I.D. Web Digital, Mason Laskey refined his website design skills. He learned how to create review pages, built marketing process checklists, create website user reports, and troubleshoot technical issues. By day five, Laskey said he “really started to get the hang of being able to navigate websites and know what he is doing when it comes to making little changes and edits.”
Kylie Mathieson investigated her interest in speech pathology by observing therapy sessions, evaluations, and assisting with curriculum development at The Maine Chatterbox. Mathieson marveled at how the “therapist was able to do it almost entirely through play” and at “the difference in speech between the older kids and the younger kids.”
As an aspiring aeronautical engineer, Tess Libby took her internship in a different direction, using it as an opportunity to conduct an extraterrestrial soil experiment by attempting to grow plants in Mars-like soil. Libby said that she hopes to “expand her understanding of how humans might be able to terraform a planet’s atmosphere using a simulation of the planet’s soil medium.”
In partnership with Maine Foodscapes, MacKenna Homa developed a survey intended to gain insights to create a sustainable composting program for local farmers, homeowners, and renters. Homa plans to pursue environmental engineering in college so she can “create sustainable solutions for our future.”
“The internship program is designed to be the culmination of participating seniors’ academic experiences at Gorham High School, highlighting the skills of self-direction they have learned,” said Brian Jandreau, GHS principal.
“It is a genuine opportunity for seniors to merge their various interests and passions with their academic lives at school. Similarly, it is a vehicle for seniors to demonstrate independence and complexity of thought as they build bridges from their high school careers to their future academic, professional, or vocational lives.”