Summer internship helps one senior define career path

Senior Hanna Kolaks’ internship this summer in St. Louis showed her what she does not want to do after graduation in December.

“This internship kind of made me realize maybe actual horticulture isn't for me, but connecting plants with what animals live on them and how animals use these plants that really interested me,” she said.

Kolaks was one of three horticulture interns two days a week at the Missouri Botanical Gardens butterfly house in Faust Park.

Even though she found out horticulture was not for her, there were still many parts of the internship she enjoyed.

“First thing I do is go into the butterfly house and I'm just surrounded by hundreds of butterflies flying around me,” she said.

Many of her duties at the internship were planting and upkeeping the gardens.

“I had to [water plants] for an entire five hours of just nonstop water and it was super hot,” she said.

When she was not watering she was working on a brochure about native gardens and why they benefit humans and wildlife.

“We actually got to do spend the whole summer working on a project of our choice,” she said. “It was a pretty fun project to do. Very up my alley.”

Kolaks is a wildlife conservation biology major and found the internship when her field botany professor, Allan Bornstein, posted the opening on a bulletin board.

After graduation Kolaks is going to be looking for a wildlife biologist job at a park or zoo.

“So, my plan right now is just to keep looking and looking,” she said. “I’m actually planning a month-long Europe trip, so that will happen no matter what, whether I get a big-kid job.”