After three years and three summer internships, here I am entering my final year as a K-State student. It’s a crazy thought! To sum up my most recent intern experience at the Kansas Water Office (KWO) in Topeka, I created a list of 9 takeaways from my time there.
9. You will inevitably have to explain what the Kansas Water Office is.
The KWO office gets myriad calls per day from people seeking the City of Topeka’s Water Office. Our receptionist is a pro at fielding these calls and directing the callers to the right place.
Example: Saying “I work for the Kansas Water Office” is usually followed by a load of questions. We’re the state’s water planning, policy coordination, and marketing entity. Imagine that we are an umbrella over the Kansas Department of Agriculture-Division of Water Resources and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s water bureau.
8. People will be people.
One of the most undervalued skills, in my opinion, is people relations. I learned a lot about people and personalities at KWO. In a realm where situations fringe around politics, you see many types of people.
7. Some people are really passionate about water.
I’m one of them now. I cringe when I see inefficient irrigation systems and I’m thankful for the conservation technology and research of this technology that KWO is funding to recharge the Ogallala Aquifer rather than deplete it. One major event over the summer was a field day for one of KWO’s three Water Technology Farms. The event showcased a combination of soil moisture sensors and mobile drip irrigation to help dictate when to start irrigating, when to stop, and most importantly, if it is even necessary at all. On the flip side of irrigating, it also frustrates me to see lawns being watered after a rainfall event. Save your water, people!
6. Working for the government is exactly what you would expect.
KWO interns are lucky to be paid, for one, as I know many state intern counterparts who are not. There’s also the importance of watching what you say and picking which political debates are safe to join. Usually it is better to stay neutral while in the public eye, because your actions represent the state government as a whole.
5. Being an intern for the state can lead to cool adventures.
KWO interns are allowed the opportunity to participate in the Governor’s Intern Program, which consists of six professional development sessions with fellow state interns. We covered the basic professional development topics like resumes, politic-related careers as a young professional, interviews, and how to act like an adult. We also participated in a lot of fun activities. For example, Wildlife, Parks and Tourism hosted us for a fun day at the Shawnee State Fishing Lake. The day included wingshooting, archery, kayaking and fishing. When was the last time you fished during a work day? KDA also led an agriculture-related tour to exhibit the facets of our state’s economic driver. In addition to these fun field days, we visited Cedar Crest and were presented networking opportunities.
4. There are still Kansans that believe water conservation is not their concern.
These people are quite the opposite of the water-passionate people discussed in number seven. It’s too bad there are still individuals unwilling to re-evaluate their water consumption because fear of risk outweighs the prospect of having water for future generations. Did you know that the Ogallala Aquifer, at current depletion rates, will be 70% depleted by 2064?
3. The optimal size for a Facebook graphic is a 470×470 pixel square.
This is the height/width size that appears on timelines. A major portion of my role at KWO included developing social media graphics, so I used this size standard to dictate my setup for creating the graphics we shared. In addition, I really enhanced my Adobe Illustrator skills when it came time to create engaging infographics that were worth sharing or retweeting. My advice for any students with interest in design—grab an easily portable notebook and every time you learn a new tool, technique or shortcut, write it down so you’ll easily know how to do it for future applications. I have one of these books and it helps immensely to speed up the design process.
2. Talking on the phone never gets easier.
No matter how much intern/job experience I have had, talking on the phone still gets me. There was one afternoon during the summer I was in charge of answering the phone while several staff members were in a meeting. Ironically, the first call was a person asking for the City of Topeka Water Office (see number nine). Soon after, a gentleman called asking for one of my co-workers. After accidentally hanging up on him twice, I finally figured out the correct way to transfer the call (#internfail). I suppose I am doing all right, though, if the hardest task of the summer was figuring out the phone system.
1. Real-life journalism isn’t like what they teach you in school.
Another part of my intern role included assisting with press releases. I came to discover that writing releases doesn’t always follow the clear cut rules taught at college. Call the source and ask for a quote? Writing something he/she would say and running it by them is perfectly acceptable. Write according to inverted pyramid style? Sometimes the person of most stature actually gets the first mention and quote block regardless. And like many places, gubernatorial entities follow their own style when it comes to writing. There were a few examples over the summer that in some way contradicted what professors taught me.
KWO was great to me and I now have the opportunity to extend my full-time summer internship into a part-time work-from-home job during the fall semester.
Overall, I recommend this internship to someone with an interest in politics, or someone looking to expand his or her knowledge of our state’s resources. Water is actually fascinating, and I encourage you to pay closer attention to it.
