Emily Vianemilyvian

Public Relations and Strategic Communications

Fort Wayne Children's Zoo


This internship has been such an amazing experience. I have truly found my calling in life. I have worked at other jobs and internships before but it never felt like it was something I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. Here I am excited to come to work and have really learned how to use what I am good to to educate others about wildlife and conservation.

How do you apply your Liberal Arts skills in your internship?

Because of my Liberal Arts education, I have a variety of useful skills. Liberal Arts has allowed me to personalize my education, while still covering every subject. I use Graphic Design, Entomology, Statistics, English, etc. in my internship. Only a Liberal Arts education could allow me to have such a spectrum of classes.

What is a typical day like as an intern, any challenging or exciting aspects?

I would like to say one of the most meaningful experiences I had as an intern was when I was on the news, or when our event was on the front page of the paper (above the fold!). But no, one particular event my intern partner and I had planned was really exhausting. We only had a week to plan the event, and on the day of it was pouring. I had already walked about 6 miles at this point from running around setting everything up and I took a seat near the entrance gate. While I was sitting a group of school kids came and sat on the benches next to me. At this point my eyes had glazed over from exhaustion and my feet were throbbing. But my ears perked up when I heard the child sitting next to me bragging about how he played one of the activities we had set up, and earned a sticker for it. Immediately like bees to honey, the children flocked to look at his sticker. They were ooing and ahing at it- he was a small child and it was a large sticker so it covered half of his chest- he was so proud his chest puffed out. The throbbing of my feet felt a little trivial after I saw other children lined up around my event, excited to learn. It was so rewarding to feel like I made a difference helping educate these children.



