Luther junior Clark worked in Stillwater’s prison through summer internship

One might think that not many people would want to spend part of their summer vacation in prison, but that’s exactly what Luther College junior Matthew Clark did. Clark spent his summer internship in construction work which took him inside Minnesota’s largest close-security prison for male felons for a short time. This certainly reinforced Clark’s belief in the importance of ethics and doing the right thing.

The work he did at the prison was part of an accounting and management internship at CFS Contractors in Winona, Minnesota.

Clark is the son of Steve and Susan Clark, of Winona, Minnesota. He graduated from Winona Senior High School in 2015, and plans to graduate from Luther in 2019 with a degree in accounting and management.

Clark took on this summer internship as a great way for him to learn more about CFS Contractors, as well as the contracting business. He also wanted to learn about accounting tools, transaction processing and financial statements.

As part of the accounting aspect of his internship, Clark completed paperwork, including reconciling, recording billing, and entering payroll and data. In completing fieldwork through the contracting company, he polished concrete, did carpentry work, and hauled equipment. Through the mental tasks as well as the physical labor, Clark learned what it is like to be a small business owner. He would like to run his own business someday, and is exploring career options in both the accounting and management fields.

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.

A national liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,050, Luther offers an academic curriculum that leads to the Bachelor of Arts degree in more than 60 majors and pre-professional programs. For more information about Luther visit the college’s website: http://www.luther.edu.