Swimmers land big internships

Sean Hastings, Staff Reporter

Junior swimmers Kelsey Ferguson and Beth Houghton both have top internships lined up for this coming summer.

They will be in the Financial Scholars Management program working for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

This internship is highly selective with only one representative for each state.

Ferguson will be the intern for Kentucky, and Houghton will be in Kansas. Both girls are majoring in accounting.

“It’s a great opportunity to get into governmental accounting,” Houghton said. “My end goal is to work for the FBI and be a forensic accountant.”

Houghton said that the FBI usually hires straight from the FDIC for their financial accountants. All of the higher-level governmental groups also hire from the FDIC.

Ferguson’s goal isn’t to be in government work but was told by her professor Dr. Stephen Benner that the internship has many positive results.

She said she thought she would just apply for it and see what happens.

“Dr. Benner told me that pretty much everyone he knew that went through the internship either eventually got a job with the FDIC or got a really good real life experience from it,” Ferguson said.

Houghton heard of the internship in her class with Dr. Jay Shinde

Houghton said, during their internships they will be put in different traveling teams and go bank to bank and go through their files and make sure they are following all the correct protocols.

Since this is such a big internship, head coach Jacqueline Michalski is very excited.

“I’m really proud of both of them,” Michalski said.  “I know how hard it is to get internships and for both of them to be able to achieve such a prestigious one, it says a lot that two members of our swim team can reach such a high level in their profession before they’ve even graduated.”

“Both (Ferguson) and Beth came in freaking out,” Michalski said.  “Beth called me one afternoon so excited and Kelsey came in the next day jumping up and down about this opportunity.”

Ferguson didn’t even think she was going to be able to get the internship.

“I’m really excited because it was a really hard internship to get,” Ferguson said. “The interview process was pretty tough and you had to have a lot in your application.”

There are two different sessions for them to be in, and will last 11 weeks.

Houghton will be in the first session and it will last from May 18 through July 31. Ferguson is in the second session that starts June 15.

They will meet in Arlington, Va. for an orientation to be told exactly what they will be doing during their time spent working for the FDIC.

At the end of the internship they will go back to Arlington, and there is a chance that they can be hired for a full-time job when they graduate.

 

Sean Hastings can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].