Growing up in Crawfordsville my whole life has certainly impacted my Wabash experience in some unique ways, but I think my familiarity with Crawfordsville was most impactful at my internship at the Montgomery County Health Department. This was my first internship experience at Wabash and it was definitely an eye-opener. Even though it was the least exciting part of my internship I think the meetings I had with various different county committees, stakeholders, officials, etc. were the most intriguing through the eyes of a county native. These meetings allowed me to see how some of the important decisions in my county are made and how these decisions compare to what the people of the county, many of which I have known most of my life, desire. It was also very fun going out and getting connected with the community through events like National Night Out, helping Denise at First Christian Church, and various other outreaches such as going on the radio. Although these experiences were very informative and gave me many new perspectives on the issues facing my county, the most exciting part of my internship was the various types of field work we would do.
Almost every day we would get sent to go set traps for mosquitoes and retrieve them the day after. This was always fun as the group of interns would drive out to various locations and find places for our traps. I had no experience whatsoever in vectors before, thankfully one of the other interns had worked on vectors at his previous internship and was able to explain the process to us. This not only matched my personal interests, but built on what I had been learning as a Biology major. I also was able to use some of the connections I made in my sociology class I took last semester as we worked alongside the Community Paramedicine Program who we did research projects for during the spring. I also got to see the real world implications of what we discussed throughout the class in my home community as we occasionally got sent along to perform home and restaurant inspections. This internship gave me a great opportunity to explore Public Health as a career, gave me a deeper insight into the community I go to school in and have grown up in, and related back to class in so many practical ways I would have never anticipated.
