Town resident Kelly DelMazio started this week as the new senior internship coordinator at New Canaan High School.
The Senior Internship Program sees NCHS seniors placed in internships around the community during the final three to four weeks of their senior year of high school.
We talked to DelMazio about the program, her interest in it and the need for more host businesses and organizations this spring (her email is kelly.delmazio@ncps-k12.org).
Here’s a transcript of our interview.
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New Canaanite: Please give us some of your own background in New Canaan and with the schools.
NCHS Senior Internship Coordinator Kelly DelMazio, in her office on Jan. 11, 2024. Credit: Michael Dinan
Kelly DelMazio: I actually come from higher education. I worked in higher education for 13 years. My master’s is in counseling. I’ve done academic and personal counseling at community colleges. And for the last seven years, I’ve been a career counselor. So I help students really get ready for the workplace. I help students with a wide variety of things—job and internship placement, reviewing cover letters and resumes, helping them get their LinkedIn account set up, preparing for interviews—because that can be very overwhelming for students—and teaching students how to brand themselves and market themselves in a really competitive workforce. I really enjoy that work. And I really see value in internships, and I’m a New Canaan resident. We moved here right before COVID and I have two kids at East School.
Oh I went to East School.
I have two at East and one at New Canaan Nature Center. And I feel very vested in the schools and in this community. I think we live in such a wonderful community and so this internship program position opened up and I just felt like it was a great opportunity because it’s a natural transition from what I was doing, and in a community that I really value and believe in and want to give back in.
For people who don’t know the Senior Internship Program, could you give an overview of what it is?
The last three to four weeks of the school year, seniors do one of two types of internships:They’re either self-designed, where they choose an internship site, or we help the students by placing them in an area that they might be interested in. There are a few goals of the internship, and every student has a different reason and goal of what they want to accomplish in the internship. One, we feel at the high school that the internships are really a great way for a student to get hands-on experience. To really be in the field and maybe it’s not the exact internship that they wanted, but in any internship they can get good hands-on experience and learn these transferable skills to see what do I like, what what do I not like. For some students, they might choose an internship it’s in an area that they want to major in, in college. And so when students do that internship, it might give them some validation that yes, this is what I want to do. Or it might open their eyes to oh, maybe this isn’t what I want to do. It also is a great way for students who think they know what they want to do, but want to do an internship and just try something different. Give it a try. Or just do something that they might never have the opportunity to do, or something fun for them to do. So students have different goals, and I think it’s really great and unique that they have this opportunity to test the waters.
How do the internships work?
It’s 25 hours a week, typically five days a week and we do have two mandatory trainings for the students. We bring in speakers, we have presentations that really help them get prepared for their internships. But also some of the training is also helping them prepare for the workplace as well. So we bring in someone that speaks on how to put together a resume, we bring an alum who went through the program that kind of shares her tips and her experience to help give them ideas on how to navigate it and also talks to them about how to brand yourself. We also bring in someone that helps them with LinkedIn and talks about the power of networking. And then we bring in someone that talks about workplace harassment. At the end of the program, we do a reception and celebration to really celebrate their hard work. And we get to hear stories from the interns themselves and some of the hosts get to share stories about their success and what they learned.
Tell me about where you’re at for this coming year.
Right now we’re at the point where we are interviewing all of our students that applied for the program. There’s 308 students in the class, 298 have declared that they want to do these internships. So there’s definitely excitement and there’s definitely a need. And so we need our community to really partner with us. I think for our host internship sites, it’s a great way to to be able to give back and to teach our students, but also we have amazing students. I’m blown away at the talent when I’m interviewing these students and how poised and put together and mature they are, and some of the classes they’ve taken and what they’ve learned. So our students bring a lot to the table and I think they can really bring a lot to the internships as well.
What would you say to a business or organization that is in a position maybe to host an intern or interns and hasn’t before? How do they go about getting more information? What would you say to them if they’re on the fence?
It’s three weeks. It’s not a huge commitment. Basically, if a place is interested, they would reach out to me. It’s a simple registration form. All of the businesses are organized by category of what the internship site is about, and students can go through and start to select what their top choices would be. And then myself and our committee come together and, based on the student’s interview, figure out what the best placement is for them. So the host fills out the registration form and then all they have to do is confirm each week. They’ll get an email from me just confirming the student’s hours and a very quick survey at the end. And students also have faculty mentors throughout the program. They can reach out to their faculty mentor. Students also complete journals each week—the committee comes up with these journal questions—and they complete them to self-reflect, and that’s part of what they need to submit to us to complete the program.
How many sites are you looking to add?
We would like to add about 25.
Are there any fields in particular where there’s a lot of demand?
Healthcare. We have a lot of students interested in the sciences, but particularly a physician or PA would be great.
NCHS Senior Internship Coordinator Kelly DelMazio can be reached at kelly.delmazio@ncps-k12.org.