How Internships Can Shape Your Future

Senior Ireland Laxton in her scrubs, getting ready for her internship at the Animal Hospital of Boone. Photo Cred: Ireland Laxton

Sofia Carmichael, Community Desk Lead

High school is a time of discovery and opportunity. Students join new clubs and sports, make new friends, explore academics, and learn new crucial life skills. However, they are always haunted by the question: “What do you want to do when you graduate?” Luckily, Watauga High School has plenty of great opportunities for students to investigate future career paths. WHS has CTE classes and Caldwell pathways available that many students take advantage of, but doing an internship might be a hidden means of discovering your future path. 

Laura Carson, the Career Development Coordinator at Watauga High School, has taken over the internship program this school year and is looking at ways to build the program in a way that gives the most opportunities for students. 

“I am working closely with student services and the CTE department. As we are looking toward registration, we are looking at redefining the catalog for internships and pre-apprenticeships,” said Carson. “We really want to model our internship programs as something to explore careers and align it with the career paths that students have chosen.”

The biggest redesign has been working to build a network of connections to local businesses and employers to give students a wide variety of places to intern. Right now, students have had to reach out and find their own places to intern, which could make it difficult for students to have internships. 

“We want to work with the community to build those partnerships and provide opportunities instead of students having to go out and find their own,” said Carson. “I’m collecting feedback from our current interns right now, and I really want to be able to provide a list of places that want to provide those opportunities for our students and have good relationships with our program.” 

Some students have the opportunity to participate in pre-apprenticeships in fields like welding and carpentry. While these are direct paths to their chosen field, they require over 4,000 hours and a lot of dedication. Alternatively, students who are more interested in finding out about a field may find internships perfect, and there are so many different fields to choose from. 

“Students are interested in animal care, welding, education, law, and health, and a variety of different things,” said Carson. “I had a great talk with people from UNC Health Appalachian about the amount of services. It’s not just nursing, it's not just physicians. There are all sorts of opportunities for students.”

Ireland Laxton, a senior, has been interested in pursuing a career in the veterinary field since childhood. After her previous experience observing a veterinarian before high school, Laxton realized that an internship might be the best thing to pursue her passion further.

“I’ve wanted to be a veterinarian since I was in kindergarten, and I knew that getting hands-on experience would help with the whole process,” said Laxton. “So I reached out to our vet where we take our dogs, and then my 8th grade year that summer, they allowed me to intern there. When I got to high school, I realized I could put that as a class, which I applied for and got.”

Laxton goes to the vet's office for 2-4 hours a day, 3-4 days a week. This is a huge part of her weekly schedule, but it is also one of the best parts of her week. She is constantly seeing new procedures and finding out what she wants to work with in the future. 

“I observe a lot of surgeries like spays, neuters, and any kind of surgery, and I help with holding pets, drawing up vaccines, running blood tests, and cleaning rooms,” said Laxton. “There have also been a couple of amputations that have been really cool and mass removals. I like working with cases that are maybe not so routine because I know that I want to work with more exotic animals when I go to vet school. That fascinates me a lot.”

Internships are normally only for one block during the day, but with the available free block due to a Caldwell class, Laxton can expand her time at the vet’s office. However, figuring out how to balance schoolwork and the internship can become difficult. 

“I love the internship because it is something that I want to be doing, so I want to spend all my time there, but I know that I also need to prioritize my schoolwork, and since I go during my Caldwell block, I have to find another time to do that work,” said Laxton.

With college application season at its peak, Laxton has her eyes on North Carolina State University and intends to major in Animal Science and go into their pre-vet program. This internship has only inspired her more to pursue this further. 

“This has given me a really good view of what it is actually like to be a veterinarian,” said Laxton. “I have to deal with the really sad stuff or the stuff that might gross people out, but I am there seeing it. It has just made me want to be a veterinarian even more. I know that this will be a field that I will actually be happy in, and I can also go into college and vet school knowing that I have some experience and know what that field looks like.”

Students from all over the school, just like Laxton, are working at local businesses across the county and learning what their actual careers might look like. And as this is one of the last times in our lives that we have these explorative opportunities, it is more and more important to set up the right program. 

“High school is the only time when you can truly explore multiple options in a learning environment or in a controlled environment,” said Carson. “You have the opportunity to try so many different clubs and sports, so I think we need to provide that same opportunity to careers.”