Many high-achieving high school students nationwide look for opportunities to expand and develop their professional lives outside of the classroom. With the assistance of rigorous programs and internships, students at OHS, especially upperclassmen, strive for self-development.
Colleges and universities offer many prestigious and rigorous programs, ranging from local to Ivy. By taking the initiative, students research to discover programs that interest and resonate with them.
“It was this program for AI [that] was law-based and I took it through an MIT program. It essentially taught basic AI and tools that would be beneficial for you to use and since I’m interested in going into law, I decided that it would be good for me,” said Autumn Knapp, senior.
OHS also provides opportunities for students to expand their passions and gain real-world experiences in their field of interest. These internships and programs are usually linked to CTE courses offered at the school.
“I had the sports med internship. It is affiliated with the school and basically, you work on the athletes with rehab or you tape them and get them ready for games… After your sophomore year, you have the option to be in the internship if you’ve taken advanced sports med,” said Austin Westroom, senior.
Almost every student who participates in internships and programs does it to gain a preview of the major and profession they want to pursue in the future. These programs are eye-opening for students and foster their passions even further.
“In the future, I want to do something to do with international relations and law or something in government. I think the program really pushed me to want to do something in civil service and to give back to the Arizona community,” said Maya Bustos, senior and participant of Girls State.
Even if the internship is not in a student’s specific field of interest, there are general advantages to participating in a professional experience.
“I would recommend that anybody that is semi-interested in the medical field be involved in an internship because no matter what you do, it’s gonna help you with teamwork, clinic experience, and medical experience. I mean even if you don’t want to go into the medical field, it is a good experience because you get to work as a team and help out,” Westroom said.
The experiences that students gain from internships and programs range greatly depending on the area of profession they are interning for. From business to politics, students can have authentic experiences firsthand.
“We filled out an accounting case study for different aspects of accounting. We worked on fishing emails for an intern company project and also advocated for nonprofits with 5000 dollar grants,” said Elizabeth Young, junior and former intern at Clifton Larson Allen.
Although most programs require students to work on-site, others are conducted online. Though this might limit collaboration and interaction, it does not prevent students from gaining quality experiences.
“It was a lot of lecturing, so the professor would come online, and he would have a PowerPoint; it was via Zoom. He would share the screen, present information, and explain how to use certain AIs like ChatGPT and how to use them to benefit,” Knapp said. “Each person was assigned a little topic from his presentation… so I did a little research on that and it was just a quick, 5-10 minute presentation at the end.”
Throughout these programs and internships, students also have the opportunity to interact with peers and professionals outside of school. This allows them to network with a variety of people who share similar interests and even gain knowledge from experts in the field.
“During the program, I worked with girls from all over Arizona coming from places unheard of such as Snowflake or even as far as Kingman. It was nominated girls from different Arizona high schools,” Bustos said. “Throughout the program, we got to meet with guest speakers, such as Attorney General Chris Mayes, or our Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who would speak to us on their stance on political matters.”
For every program, however, there are basic skills and qualities students should possess to keep up with the rigor of work and accomplish the tasks given.
“For me, I needed a lot of public speaking ability. They kind of put you on the spot on being able to fend for yourself and speak on your capabilities and why you are important in the mock government system that they create… I honestly think that anybody can join this program as long as you’re willing to step out of your box and have an interest in politics and the political climate of the world currently,” Bustos said.
Although the prospect of participating in rigorous internships and programs may be daunting, they are similar to many OHS students’ jobs. The main difference is that internships are career-specific.
“A lot of jobs available to high school students aren’t very focused on career and technical aspects, so I’d say an internship is much better, especially if you have a career that you want to pursue, but you need a college degree,” Young said.
Being involved in these programs can shine on college applications, but some students participate simply out of their desire to further their learning, even if the program isn’t well-known.
“It was a lot more older people participating in [the program] to learn about AI for their companies, so I was the only high school student in it. It was just because I was really interested in this sort of thing. I didn’t really do it because I wanted to put it on my college application, I just wanted to do it because I knew it would benefit me in the future,” Knapp said.
