Welcome to Gustavus Adolphus College’s Student Stories Series!
Nicollet County Public Health Intern
Major: Public Health
Minor: Philosophy
What was your career experience?
I served as an intern with Nicollet County Public Health. They serve the community of Nicollet County by discovering health issues, talking with the community about solutions, and implementing and carrying out solutions. Currently, I am working on work involving a cannabis suppression grant awarded by the state. I have also done some vaccine research, community health improvement planning, and educational data analysis on the county.
How did you get the experience? What steps did you take to achieve this?
I originally attended a Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) meeting in my junior year and networked with the staff and reached out again in my senior year to ask about potential internships.
Tell us more about your accomplishment.
Through my internship at Nicollet County Health and Human Services, I learned how local governments work towards supporting the health and welfare of their communities. I worked on data analysis projects related to childhood vaccines, state cannabis grants, community improvement planning and more. Through my data analysis work, I prepared presentations for multiple local groups and connected with other educational institutions to share our findings.
Who were some of the people who helped you most at Gustavus to get this opportunity? What did you learn from them?
Karl Larson, he originally invited the public health majors to the CHIP meeting which is where I made the connections that lead to this internship.
How did the Engaged Learning Funds help you be able to complete this experience?
The engaged learning funds helped me be able to travel throughout the community to collect data that will be used to improve it!
Anything else you want to share about your experience working with Career Development?
I would just like to extend another thank you for the funds and your continued support of students!
How have you applied things you’ve learned here at Gustavus to this opportunity? (i.e., Career & Self Development, Communication, Critical Thinking, Equity & Inclusion, Leadership, Professionalism, Teamwork, Technology)
I learned about critical thinking, in ways in which we can use data to tell stories and create actionable plans to improve our community. I also learned about equity and inclusion when analyzing the data and throughout our planning process to figure out ways in which we can reach all people in our community. I also learned some new technology skills that helped my data analysis projects.
