Luther senior interns at Swaziland Tourism Authority

Lindelwa Gama, Luther College senior, spent her summer interning at Swaziland Tourism Authority in Mbabane Hhohho, Swaziland where she was responsible for providing information on local resources and facilities, and promoting tourism in order to attract visitors into the country and market tourism products, services and facilities.

Gama is the daughter of Susan and Musa Gama of Manzini, Swaziland. She graduated from the United World College of Southern Africa in 2014. Today she is a management major at Luther.

Gama learned a great deal about herself while at the internship; including that she is a very organized individual who enjoys working in teams. She also said that she learned to better appreciate the values of trust and responsibility with this experience. She explained that she felt very proud that her supervisor entrusted her with the responsibility of handling some tasks on her own without supervision.

Gama says that she learned many important lessons about work culture and professionalism while at the Swaziland Tourism Authority. She learned quite a bit about important interpersonal skills that are not only applicable, but essential to the management field.

Approximately 10 percent of Luther students take an internship for academic credit each academic year. The Luther College Career Center assists students with their internship search through resume preparation, networking, online internship searches, career fairs, on-campus interviewing, and connecting the student to alumni through the college’s Alumni Internship Program. Students also meet with a faculty adviser prior to the internship to create an internship learning plan that includes learning goals and assessment benchmarks. An internship work supervisor assists in the process by writing an evaluation of the student at the end of the internship. Students also complete a self-reflection form to help finalize the learning experience.