Marietta students reflect on experiential learning opportunities

by Tom Perry

Marietta, OH (10/02/2023) — After completing an internship with WOWT-TV in Omaha, Nebraska, Morgan Ahlstrom '25 (Satellite Beach, Florida) made an important discovery.

"The best part of having an experience like this is now, more than ever, I know this is what I want to do," said Ahlstrom, who is majoring in Broadcasting. "No day was ever boring, and I like being able to speak with new people every day."

Ahlstrom was one of many Marietta College students participating in the Student Experiential Education Experience Workshop in the Dyson Baudo Recreation Center on Monday. The session was part of the College's second annual Experiential Education Day.

"We have close to 80 presenters, including our Investigative Studies students, poets and playwrights, internships, Study Abroad, Communication, Research, and some students who had independent studies and research," said Christy Burke, Director of Education Abroad and Director of Graduate Recruitment.

Burke said more students are using experiential education funding now.

"We're grateful to have some donors who can assist with the students' cost of living and interning over the summer," she said. "We have five Career Center internship-related funds, and we also have study abroad funding as well as experiential aid funding through the Business and Economics Department. Students have used it for travel to and from their location, living expenses such as summer housing, and tuition costs. So, it really does help curb the cost, particularly if it's an unpaid internship."

Faculty, staff, students and community members attended presentations, learned about physics in a DIY lab, and heard amazing history presentations throughout the day. The College was also hosting the BIG (Build, Innovate, Grow) Workshop, which featured a keynote address by entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker Julie Wilkes '98. BIG attendees also attended breakout sessions for topics like "Using AI: New Tools & Techniques for Small Businesses," "Leveraging Diversity: Is Your Team Fully Engaged?" and "Product Development: Think Differently to Achieve Amazing Results."

English major Megan Marshall '24 (Naples, Florida) interned with the Indiana-based IT firm, Saggio Technology, where she was able to put her studies - including her minors in Professional Writing, Creative Writing, and Leadership Studies - to use.

"My internship was focused on marketing, specifically in illustrating comics and writing for comics - so caption writing and all text writing - so because this was for my professional writing minor, I focused more on the captioning process than the illustrating process, but I did get to illustrate two comics, which was really fun," Marshall said.

The concept of the comics follows "Saggio Sam," and "Sam Man," which is his alter ego - a "dad" character and his IT-knowledgeable superhero counterpart.

"Saggio Sam is an original idea by past interns and it's basically a fun and witty way to look into the struggles we face with technology while promoting the IT firm that can help people with those specific struggles," Marshall said.

Her responsibilities varied weekly. But there were regular tasks like team meetings and contributing comics. She collaborated with 10 other group members to come up with ideas and execute the selected ones.

"I don't really have a lot of marketing experience, so this also gave me a huge insight into what marketing looked like."

She engaged with the company's social media, commenting, liking and resharing posts on Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Twitter. Saggio made daily posts, so Marshall learned how marketing for technology has a huge presence.

A last-minute addition to the schedule included Ohio State Senator Catherine Ingram (D-Cincinnati) meeting with MC's teacher candidates on Zoom. Ingram is the ranking member of the Senate Primary and Secondary Education, Workforce and Higher Education, and Medicaid Committees.

"We had planned a pizza and advocacy lunch for ExEd Day to help teacher candidates craft messages to legislators regarding the grade band change that was part of the budget bill passed this summer," said Dr. Tanya Judd, Dean of the Education Department. "There is talk that there might be interest in reversing the grade band decision, so we had a freshman Teacher Leadership candidate who worked with us on this opportunity, and Sen. Ingram agreed to join us."

Teacher candidate Emma DeWeese '27 (Bellbrook, Ohio) organized the talk with Sen. Ingram - mainly to discuss changing from the current grade bands to only two (pre-K-8 and 6-12).

"Preventing this change of grade bands is of utmost importance to me and many other teacher candidates. We all care about the success of students not only academically, but developmentally as well," DeWeese said. "By changing the grade bands in Ohio, teachers will have to generalize their knowledge of their students to accommodate a much larger age gap. A first grader and an eighth grader are worlds apart, not only in school content but also developmentally."

DeWeese added that another consequence could be the loss of Marietta College's dual licensure program that allows early and middle education majors to also be certified in special education.

"I chose Marietta College specifically for that program because I want to be able to teach all my students, regardless of their abilities," she said. "I feel that by generalizing education and the loss of our dual licensure program at Marietta, education in Ohio will decline significantly."

Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy, which was founded in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers more than 50 majors and is consistently ranked as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review. Marietta was selected seventh in the nation according to the Brookings Institution's rankings of colleges by their highest value added, regardless of major.

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