Guest eJournal – The Spring Intern’s Reflection on a Worthwhile Experience

For those of you who never got the chance to meet me, or had no idea why I had invaded various desks at City Hall, I was lucky enough to be given the spring internship under City Manager Karen Kurt. I am a soon to be graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice.

Prior to this internship, my only work experience was spending two summers at Walmart working mostly in the backroom. In other words, I had certainly hoped and expected an internship for City Hall to give me some much-needed experience in a much more professional and… let’s say “sophisticated” workplace environment. I must say that I got that experience and much more. I came to UW-Platteville as a Criminal Justice major who’s only thought process was that I wanted to be a public servant in some form. My education eventually developed into picking up my second major, Political Science, which became my primary focus. Though I was becoming more secure in my aspirations, which became attending law school post grad, I was still a bit shaky in my confidence.

Karen Kurt and Jodie Richards worked around my student schedule so that this would be the most worthwhile experience for me that it could be. I would not say that I was a communications intern, as Karen gave me so many opportunities to branch out and see what I could handle/and or accomplish. Not only was I given a variety of tasks that I will delve into shortly, but Karen immediately pushed me into the world of local government by having me attend numerous committees and boards. I had the opportunity to sit in on a couple Common Council meetings, a meeting of the Library Board commission, the Platteville Library Foundation, and even a library construction crew meeting with Public Works Director Howard Crofoot. Though sitting in on these meetings did not accomplish any desk work for Karen, they provided an invaluable experience.

One of the first tasks Karen had me spearhead was to be the city’s liaison to the Downtown Parking Task Force project with UW-Platteville. I organized each meeting and did the communications work between the students and the city. Though perhaps not the most exciting of tasks, juggling the schedules of fifteen people to assign a meet up date is certainly an experience. Handling my liaison work for the Downtown Parking Task Force was more of a side project though, as Karen also asked me to develop various things on the Platteville.org website. A visitor to the Platteville website might be happy to know that the Frequently Asked Questions portion of the website has been buffed out. I was also asked to research for and develop a new resident page to answer those questions of the newest members of our community in a neat and timely fashion. Karen and Jodie were sure to provide helpful input, and the city Administrative Assistant Colette showed me how to make the webpage a reality.

Perhaps my favorite experience was developing a new set of policies for Platteville Transit. I did a large amount of research on what kinds of policies were in place for other transit systems and what kind of policy would be best suited for our city. With that work and recommendations from Karen Kurt and Howard Crofoot, I created the new policy for our city. I was given the opportunity to present the culmination of this work to the Platteville Public Transportation Committee.

All this work let me into the world of local government, if only briefly, and provided a professional experience that was far more valuable than just another classroom lecture. Though my future may take me in any number of directions, I will always remember the wonderful and truly helpful people at Platteville’s City Hall.

-Spencer J Wingert