BG program giving students real-world experience

Throughout their senior year, these students took part in BG’s new practicum program, which Chief Education Officer Joan Donnelly said was designed to “provide students with real-world experience in their field of interest.”

“By allowing students to tailor their learning experience through internships, research projects or other hands-on endeavors, they can achieve outcomes that go beyond traditional classroom learning,” Donnelly said.

Program faculty advisor Chris Brown said most of the work setting up the internships was done by the students.

One of those students is Ryan Hagg, who credited his acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to his practicum.

Noah Kelleher

“I stood out on the application because a million kids had the same exact application as I do, same exact SAT,” Hagg said. “So just having the ability to do something like this in high school, just helps me stick out.”

He interned at the Van Zandt VA Medical Center, using his placement in physical therapy as an opportunity to talk to the veterans.

He knew he wanted to attend an academy like West Point, like his brother and uncle before him, so his goal was to hear the veterans’ stories and ask for their opinions, Hagg said.

It was “eye-opening,” Hagg said, because, while he realized that PT wasn’t a fit, he was “definitely interested” in a military career.

He said there was one thing he noticed about the vets that stuck with him, and helped in his decision — they are usually wearing hats with their unit and service location embroidered on it, with most saying Vietnam.

Molly Burke

“Just that little thing, that just kind of stood out to me, saying that it meant something to them,” Hagg said. “You just don’t have that on if it didn’t mean something to you. If I was going to do this and essentially sign my life away and put my life on the line — that if it meant something to them, it will mean something to me.”

Hagg wants to go into aviation and fly Apache helicopters, while his civilian-minded fellow senior, Noah Kelleher wants to stay on the ground — preferably in something equally as fast.

Kelleher started toward that goal by interning at Keller Engineers, where he worked with blueprints, design, digitized physical files and backed up data.

He also went on a bridge inspection, although he wasn’t allowed on any of the equipment. The bridge was near Bedford, Kelleher said, and they were looking for things like cracks and fissures.

“It’s pretty obvious” when you inspect a bridge and know it shouldn’t pass, Kelleher said. “I don’t think a bridge should be like that.”

Marklin Myers

For his efforts, Kelleher was awarded a full scholarship to West Virginia University’s Honors College. He’ll dual major in mechanical and aerospace engineering, earning two degrees in five years.

At WVU, Kelleher plans on joining the Formula SAE team, which every year builds a race car and races it against other colleges like UCLA.

“They’re bigger than go-karts, but they’re more at that level,” Kelleher said. “It’s not Formula One level. You still go pretty fast and you design it. You design everything, except for the engine and the wheels.”

With his degrees, Kelleher could work at NASA, NASCAR, Formula One or be a mechanical or chief engineer at companies like Tesla.

“Growing up, my grandfather had this old 1957 Chevy pickup truck that was rusted in the garage and I was able to restore that with him,” Kelleher said. “That’s kind of what got me into cars.”

Like Hagg and Kelleher, Molly Burke attributed her acceptance into the Culinary Institute of America to her practicum at the Mayfield at the Capitol Hotel.

Burke said her family is “scientific” because her dad is a doctor, her mom is a scientist and her siblings have scientific degrees. While she also wanted to go into a science-related field, she wasn’t very academic.

“When I was five, my dad was making sourdough bread with me and he was explaining the science behind it,” Burke said. “In sophomore year, I really had no idea what I wanted to do. My mom brought up cooking, because I always cook, and those two moments clicked together and just made sense.”

Burke was working at Mayfield for about a year when the opportunity came up for her to work there during her internship. A hostess for nine months, she started plating food and was also responsible for the dessert, bread, salad and sending out orders.

Burke said the experience taught her about time management as working in a restaurant is “very fast-paced.”

“I work in the kitchen, but there’s two different restaurants, there’s the Mayfield and the Pipe Room,” Burke said. “The food comes out of the same kitchen.”

Burke expects to earn a bachelor’s in food business management. She then plans on taking a summer off to travel before beginning her master’s program in Switzerland.

Marklin Myers will also be traveling, but will be doing so with state Sen. Judy Ward as part of a paid summer internship.

“I’ll be traveling around Pennsylvania, talking to business people, but at the same time I’ll be helping her research specific topics of modern day politics,” Myers said, giving AI as one example.

Myers contacted Ward and asked if he could intern with her for his practicum, but was turned down because he hadn’t graduated high school yet. Ward did invite him to shadow her for a day and took him to Harrisburg to see the Senate and meet other politicians.

Still deciding between law and politics, Myers interned in the Blair County Courthouse’s Juvenile Probation Office.

“It really focused me on what specific law I want to get into and what law I don’t,” Myers said.

Working with juveniles wasn’t for him, he said, and he is now exploring business law.

He said the practicum also helped him prepare for life at Duquesne University, where he’ll study political science and psychology.

“It definitely helped me get ready for college, not only by getting first-hand experience through things that I’m interested in going forward, but also by preparing me for what I can do, like getting internships and how to contact certain people in the political science field,” Myers said.

Brown said these seniors would be successful doing “pretty much anything,” but the practicum took them “to the next level.”

“They definitely have a level of clarity that I absolutely did not have as a high school senior,” Brown said.

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.