Luther senior Mendez interns at San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum

Exploring her passions in art and design, Luther College senior Vanessa Mendez of San Diego, California, interned in marketing over the past few months at the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum in Escondido, California.

Mendez, daughter of Megan and Carlos Mendez, graduated from Rancho Buena Vista High School in 2014. She will graduate from Luther in spring 2018 with a major in art.

The San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum encourages learning through play in a variety of creative cultural, artistic and science activities and exhibits. As a marketing intern, she developed marketing assets including managing calendars, creating website headers and working on social media promotions. In her daily work, Mendez felt free “to be independent, creative, and a leader.”

The creative and encouraging atmosphere at the museum bolstered Mendez’s confidence with its emphasis on collaboration and imagination. The practical experience in graphic design has inspired her to pursue a career in art marketing and graphic design, or to continue on to graduate school after graduation from Luther.

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.