As a student considering a career in finance, Nadia Milovich ’28 couldn’t have asked for a better training ground than Midtown Manhattan.
That’s where she worked this summer as an intern on the financial services team at EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, a company with more than 3,400 employees nationwide. The experience working in client-account oversight, data analysis and internal reporting helped her define her career goals, build a professional network — and even get a job offer.
And it all happened as part of a growing number of special internships available only to Kenyon students, created with the help of alumni, parents and other supporters.
At a time when competition for work opportunities is fiercer than ever, the Career Development Office has been collaborating with members of the Kenyon Network — mentors with ties to the College who represent more than 200 industries — to set up and fund internships for students in everything from finance to the arts.
This summer, more students than ever accepted paid internships that were created as exclusive partnerships with the College, with more than 85 percent of them fully funded by donors. While Milovich spent her summer at EPIC, other Kenyon students worked at places like the Cleveland Museum of Art, New York Stage and Film, the University of Southern California, Columbia University’s Teachers College and Stonewall Columbus.
The impact of experiences like these can last a lifetime, said Alicia Misarti, who became the Career Development Office’s inaugural director of internships in the spring.
“Undergraduates who participate in experiential learning and internships have better early career outcomes, higher career satisfaction, higher starting salaries, greater confidence, and stronger alignment between their jobs and their career goals,” Misarti said.
Which is why the College is developing even more of these partnerships and why it created Misarti’s job in the first place. The good news? Donors and employers are just as enthusiastic.
“Why wouldn’t you be?” Misarti said. “This goes to the caliber of the Kenyon College brand. They’re really excited about our students.”
Bringing in the Kenyon Network is an important aspect, too, given that a 2025 report cited by Forbes found that more than half of workers reported getting their job through a connection.
Milovich, an economics major from suburban Cleveland, said that her experience at EPIC was outstanding — both in terms of adding to her skillset and getting her foot in the door of the industry.
“Through EPIC and the Kenyon alumni that I have met throughout my time here, I have had the privilege to begin building connections in New York that have already helped me make the finance industry feel a lot more accessible,” she said.
And the skills Milovich brought with her from Kenyon made her a valuable asset to the company, which offered her an opportunity to return next summer, according to co-president Phil Moyles ’86. While she already has an internship lined up elsewhere, he expects to add more Kenyon interns next year.
“She’s done a tremendous job. We’re very impressed,” he said. “I’m a big believer in liberal arts education because I feel that the future is really around leadership, broad-based thinking and being able to solve problems.”
Moyles is such an advocate that he hosted a networking event for Kenyon alumni and students in New York this summer. The roughly 130 attendees heard from President Julie Kornfeld about how the College is working to connect more students to experiential learning like internships, through alumni connections and often with donor support.
On the other side of the country, Ifti Rahman ’28, a molecular biology major from Bangladesh, spent the summer interning at the University of Southern California in the lab of a different Kenyon alum, Joe Wiemels ’88, professor of population and public health sciences and director of the doctoral program in epidemiology.
There Rahman worked on cutting-edge research related to acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a fast-growing and life-threatening blood cancer that primarily affects children. Rahman said he found the experience helpful in terms of mastering new capabilities and confirming his career interests.
“I really like this work,” he said. “I just love the scientific process. I love getting hands-on, trying to figure out questions, addressing knowledge gaps. Coming here, it’s been challenging because there are so many new things that I’m dealing with, which has been exciting to learn and put into practice.”
Doing it with a mentor who also went to Kenyon — and being supported by the Stautberg Family Fund for Career Development, established in 2019 by Katherine T. ’87 P’23 and Timothy E. Stautberg ’85 P’23 — was an inspiring reminder of how well the College prepares its graduates for meaningful work.
“I am and will always be grateful to Kenyon for opening that door and preparing me to go out into the world,” Rahman said.