Many students complete internships while they’re in college, whether it’s a required part of their course of study or just to gain valuable real-world experience. Here are a few students with interesting summer internships.

Natalie Askren

This summer, New York City will be home to Natalie Askren, junior in art and design. The Muscatine native will be spending her days at Interior Design magazine working with the Internet and marketing departments.

Askren has only been to the Big Apple once, when she stayed for two days.

“I am really excited about working in New York,” she said. “I have always wondered if I could live in a big city when I graduate, so this will be a test.”

Askren found her housing arrangements through an organization called Educational Housing Services, which pairs interns with a place to live.

“I will be living in a room in the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan,” Askren said. “It’s not a typical hotel room, though. It is dorm-style, and I’ll have a roommate, who I won’t meet until I get there.”

Askren, whose internship runs for 11 weeks, has her father to thank. He met the publisher of Interior Design magazine at a conference earlier this year and mentioned that his daughter was interested in the magazine industry.

“I talked to the publisher on the phone,” Askren said. “He told me that they took interns during the summer and, when I asked him if there were any positions open, he said ‘yes’ and that my timing was perfect.”

Although going to New York would be a scary experience for many people, Askren is excited.

“It is going to be an amazing experience,” Askren said. “Sure, I’m nervous about meeting people, but it will be something that pushes me out of my comfort zone. I think those experiences are the most valuable.”

Micah Lange

As the weather begins to warm up, more and more motorcycles can be seen racing along Lincoln Way. Some of these are quite similar to the the bikes Micah Lange, sophomore in mechanical engineering, will be working with this summer.

Lange visited the Polaris booth at the engineering career fair last fall and during his freshman year. The connections he made really paid off – Lange was called back for an interview and was later offered a position as an intern, which he took without any hesitation.

“I am really excited for this internship because I will get to work with the manufacturing side of engineering instead of the designing side – which is what I’m used to,” Lange said. “Not to mention, I will be in a great location.”

Lange will be spending the upcoming summer months near Lake Okoboji in northwestern Iowa.

Polaris is a company that engineers and manufactures snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and utility vehicles. Lange’s job will mainly involve working with motorcycles and utility vehicles, both of which are a couple of Lange’s favorite pastimes, so it should be fun.

“I will be working with the manufacturing process and making changes to the vehicles,” Lange said. “I will also be making sure that the assembly line is working correctly.”

In addition to working for the entire summer, Lange plans on staying at Polaris through the fall semester. This extended period will give him a chance to get experience that most interns wouldn’t during the summer.

Gina Palomo

Finding a good internship doesn’t always mean you need to travel far from home or school. For Gina Palomo, sophomore in animal science and pre-veterinary medicine, her dream internship is less than 20 minutes from her house in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

“I worked as an intern at the Village Animal Hospital last year,” Palomo said. “I was the first intern they’ve ever had. They must have liked me, because they asked me back for this summer.”

Palomo’s duties at the vet clinic included a little bit of everything. She called clients to remind them of their appointments, stocked shelves and cleaned around the clinic and animals’ cages.

“The best part of the job was the hands-on work,” Palomo said. “I got to observe surgeries, do lab work and hold animals while they were getting vaccinated or having their blood drawn.”

Her most memorable experience from last summer was holding down a 200-pound dog while blood was drawn from its body for testing.

“I was literally riding on its back while it was trying to run away,” Palomo said.

Her advice to other students who are looking for an internship is to start looking as soon as possible and not to accept “no” as an answer.

Palomo herself was turned down by seven clinics, including the Village Animal Hospital. Fortunately, she had connections, and after trying persistently, was offered the job.

“Keep applying at different places until someone says ‘yes’,” Palomo said. “Internships give you experience that you can’t get in a classroom.”