Political science major Luna Hicks ’26 had a lot of questions going into the summer before her senior year about what life after Kenyon might look like.
“I was still figuring out what I wanted to do — if that’s law or the public sector or a political campaign,” she said.
To help bring things into focus, Hicks spent her summer in Washington, D.C., where she stayed at George Washington University and completed an internship with George Mason University’s National Security Institute as part of the esteemed Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute’s Academy for Civics Education and Democracy.
The results were eye-opening and encouraged her to pursue a career in security and defense.
“It really spoke to me,” the New Hampshire native said. “The program had a lot of things that I could try and end up figuring out what I wanted to do with my career. … Now I have more clarity about the types of things I do and don’t want to do.”
At the National Security Institute, Hicks watched congressional hearings, wrote memos for researchers, and attended a round table hearing featuring defense attachés from Europe. As part of the Academy for Civics Education and Democracy — designed to foster the next generation of civic leaders — she took part in accredited coursework on presidential legacy through George Washington University and visited related historical sites.
Her experience — which she first learned about in an email from the Career Development Office — was funded by a grant from the Austin E. Knowlton Foundation because of her status as a Kenyon student.
Other students had summer experiences that were similarly helpful in moving them forward in their professional journey. Just ask Sacha Franjola ’26, who spent her summer in Manhattan working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. An intern in the criminal division’s national security and international narcotics unit, she assisted with work related to counterterrorism, transnational drug trafficking and more.
An art history major with a minor in classics and a concentration in law and society, Franjola spent her time preparing evidence for trials and drafting subpoenas, nondisclosure orders, search warrant renewals and other documents. She also got to observe attorneys in action in court, including the closing arguments of the high-profile Sean “Diddy” Combs case.
“It was a really good place to start a career and to learn and get my feet wet in that industry,” Franjola said. “Being able to observe court was really interesting and fulfilling, and definitely helped me place myself in the attorneys’ shoes and picture myself doing their job.”
The work was a perfect fit for her interests in other ways, too, she said, because her academic focus is on the looting of ancient art, something that overlaps considerably with terror organizations that make money off such sales.
And it’s exactly the sort of experiential learning opportunity that is an essential part of career exploration today, according to Dean for Career Development Lee Schott.
“An internship is so valuable because it often combines many components of the career education process into one immersive, prolonged experience — networking, project-based learning, the application of skills in new environments, mentorship and feedback,” Schott said. “We want to help as many students take advantage of these opportunities as possible.”
The CDO currently promotes more than 8,000 internship opportunities to students through Handshake and the office’s weekly newsletter. These include “The Kenyon Network” internships offered by alumni and other Kenyon connections as well as local internships with Knox County employers that are offered through the academic year as part of the Community Internship Program.
You never know where such opportunities might lead. For Arianna Flota ’27, an environmental studies major, it was the Florida Keys, where she had an internship at Mote Marine Laboratory’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration. There she learned about coral ecology, strengthened her lab skills, and actively took part in research dedicated to the preservation of corals.
Flota spent her days caring for corals that were part of the lab’s experimental system designed to mimic future ocean acidification and climate change scenarios. She also tested the accuracy of a device intended to help prevent coral bleaching events and was able to monitor for disease and do other work while scuba diving along a nearby reef.
The experience was all she could have hoped for — and maybe more.
“I am so lucky to have spent the summer at the forefront of global coral research,” she said. “Growing up in San Pedro, Belize, I started pursuing the environmental studies major at Kenyon with the hope of using it to improve the coral reefs I spent my childhood playing in. Now, I have a passion for continuing a career pursuing research to continue to protect the world's reefs.”