Even though Providence students have taken a break from their studies over the summer, they haven’t been taking it easy. Many of them have been making the most of their three months away from college.

Education students Laura Fobar and Emily De Boer both work at UCLA’s English Language Center as resident counselors in their Junior Program. In  addition to working closely with students from abroad at UCLA’s campus, De Boer and Fobar have accompanied them around greater Los Angeles, visiting the Getty, Griffith Observatory, Universal Studios, and Hollywood. “The most rewarding aspect of this job has been the opportunity to interact with students from all over the world, as well as to watch them interact with one another and make friends from different cultures,” De Boer said. For Fobar, this experience followed up her May term trip to Cambodia with other Providence students.

Other students returned home to work. Sophomore Johnathan Kruis is working as a life guard this summer in his hometown of Tucson, AZ. For sophomore Luke Walls of Lacombe, Alberta, Canada, his summer has been split between working for his dad’s carpentry company and a mission trip to Mexico at the beginning of July.

Two seniors have internships with policy-related organizations. Shelli Cammenga, of Midland, MI, is a summer intern at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a think tank dedicated to promoting free market ideas in the state of Michigan. “I feel it was a summer well spent; not only did I gain work experience and earn money for college, but I was able to do my part to make a difference in influencing the political and economic state of my State for the better!” Cammenga said. Her primary tasks were logging and refining the titles in the Center’s Library, clearing out the archives, overseeing the younger interns involved in the basement cleaning project, and some data entry.

Shara Guengerich, a communications and history student from Ontario, CA, has been the communications intern in Washington, D.C. for nine weeks over the summer with a national pro-life organization, Students for Life of America. While there, she has been able to directly apply skills learned in her communications concentration, such as writing press releases, articles, filming and editing news stories, and working with politicians and media on Capitol Hill. “The various COM as well as core classes I’ve taken at Providence all came together during these nine weeks.” Shara remarked. “Combining what I’ve learned while at SFLA with my Providence education in such a concrete and tangible way has been an incredible blessing.”