Monday marked the first day of LINK internships for junior students at Animas High School, where 11th graders are dispersed throughout the country to experience the reality of work environments and lifelong jobs.
LINK – leading internships for new knowledge – has been an integral graduation requirement since the school’s earliest years. The three-week, 90-hour assignment is designed to immerse high schoolers in potential future careers while exploring personal skills, such as professional communication, time management and teamwork.
This year, 55 students are participating in internships, such as journalism, animal, mechanics, conservation, firefighting and more.
Nola Ziegler, a junior at AHS, never imagined she would be strapped in the back of an ambulance and reporting to calls just days after sitting in an uneventful classroom.
“It’s offered me a lot of experience and just a lot more time to think about what I’m probably going to do for the rest of my life, because at school, it’s like you’re doing the same thing every day so nothing is new or exciting,” she said. “I’m not looking at the real world in those classes.”
Ziegler is interning at Durango Fire and Rescue Station 2, where she contributes to patients’ well-being during calls and is learning medical terminology during training – a critical step in her journey through the medical field.
Because AHS is a college preparatory school, the internship experience is essential to developing students’ sense of self, community involvement and tangible real-world experience. Every year, the LINK program begins on April 20 and concludes after 90 hours have been met usually around May 8. For these emerging adults, the boundaries are almost limitless as they have the ability to choose their own internship and travel anywhere to pursue it.
Penelope Cartwright, an intern for the League of Women Voters of La Plata County, isn’t stationed behind a school desk anymore; she’s designing social media campaigns and advertisements tailored to young adult audiences.
“You really have to take what you’ve learned from Animas’ presentations of learning and apply it to the real world,” she said. “So even though Animas sets you up well for that stuff, there’s no way to really prepare you for the professional world unless you’re there.”
The LINK internship program, which has been a staple at AHS for 15 years, is currently headed up by Elliot Baglini.
He has been the AHS LINK coordinator for three years.
“The best internships are when students are hungry for information, new experiences and they leave their internship more curious than before,” he said.
At AHS, LINK internships have become an annual tradition that are “a project-based approach to career counseling and preparing students for life after high school,” Baglini said.
In South Padre Island, Texas, Vivian Van Delden is an intern for Sea Turtle Inc. where she educates guests, observes medical operations and learns clinical procedures. For Van Delden, the LINK program was the perfect opportunity to explore her interests outside “landlocked Durango.”
The LINK experience is more than just an opportunity to travel or avoid school; it represents a crowd of young adults overflowing with passion, perspective and a deep desire to learn with meaning.
“I would definitely encourage other people to experience LINK,” Van Delden said. “I think it’s probably one of the greatest things that AHS has to offer. Any experience that you have in LINK is going to help you, no matter what.”
Evelyn Bopp is an Animas High School junior working as a newsroom intern at The Durango Herald for her LINK internship.
