- Experience Matters - Grand Valley State University

Fostering Sobriety in Grand Rapids

Emily
Major: Psychology As a Resident Support Specialist (RSS), I play a consistent and active role in our clients' treatment plans. Sanford's RSS staff are responsible for driving clients to off-site excursions and recovery meetings to foster social inclusion and build community. From detox to discharge, the RSS must provide a judgment-free environment, active listening, and emotional co-regulation skills. RSS staff are the liaisons between clients and other facility staff. We are the first people the clients greet in the morning and the last people they wish a good night. RSS are also to hold clients accountable by assigning simple chores, providing occasional behavioral redirection and intervention, and administering routine drug screenings.

Lanthorn Photography

Kane
Major: Film & Video I took photos of the Medical buildings in downtown Grand Rapids, DEI speech, Woman's Basketball game against Ferris State, Delivering while Black speech, GVPD and their squad vehicles, and a Dungeons & Dragons Club meeting.

Creative Lead

Isabella
Major: Advertising & Public Relations A brief description of the tasks I completed for the brand included brand design, logo design/creation, social media post design/creation, as well as utilizing planning tools such as Buffer, and communication tools such as Discord. I also was a part of various virtual meetings where I presented color schemes and mock feeds to my team members.

Ticket Sales/Operations Internship

Alex
Major: Sport Management As an Inside Sales Representative for the Grand Rapids Gold, I made a significant impact on the teamýs business operations. My role centered around driving ticket sales, managing ticket operations, engaging with customers, and contributing to revenue generation. What did I sell? I successfully sold a diverse range of ticket packages, including: - Season Tickets - Single Game Tickets (Grandstand & Court-side) - Premium seating options - Hospitality areas - Birthday packages - Fan Engagement Packages (FEP) such as the Court of Dreams, High Five Tunnel, and Anthem Buddies Accolades - G-League Midseason Rookie Sales Leaderboard: - Achieved $96,554 in total ticket revenue, earning 5th place among Rookie sellers across the G-League. - Generated an impressive $52,565 in Group Revenue, securing 3rd place among Rookie sellers. - Sold a remarkable 1,875 Group Tickets, ranking 3rd among Rookie sellers league-wide.

Iowa Heartlanders Internship

Karissa
Major: Sport Management As a member of the promo team, I was responsible for running on-ice games, finding fans to compete in these games, as well as set up and take down of signage, games used on the concourse and items used in the promos. I have also been the in-game host when needed throughout the season, and been able to co-direct a hockey game with my boss.

Grand Rapids Gold Promo Team

Alex
Major: Sport Management As a promo team/game day intern, there are many different roles that need to get filled every night. Mainly there are people who throw t-shirts, rebounders/floor moppers, bench assist, bench security, working the merchandise tables, or people who run the in-game presentation. Each role uses a unique set of skills, and requires openness to doing something different on a nightly basis. There is also pre-game setup, and post-game teardown elements that each intern does that usually correlate to the job that they have been given on that night.

Grand Rapids Griffins

Griffin
Major: Sport Management Assisted with box office setup, sales, will call, and customer service duties, participated in promoting all Griffins ticket-related activities, including distributing flyers and collecting names, and supporting other ticket sales programs as determined by management, and ensured high-quality customer service for all Griffins patrons.

Adient Controls Engineering Co-Op

Zachary
Major: Electrical Engineering I worked on and completed a variety of tasks throughout the semester. This included updating/writing PLC logic, updating/making HMI screens, updating/making Ignition screens, and helping fix any problem that arose. This could be helping sort non-conforming parts, troubleshooting machines, or helping out other departments. I had my projects to work on, but constantly got pulled off to help with the next hot project, which kept my work days interesting.

Strength Coach

Kyler
Major: Sport Management I started as an intern in the summer of 2024. This included shadowing sessions, taking notes, weight room set up and clean up. I started as an apprentice in January of 2025 which is a paid position where I began to run my own training sessions and start to work in to a full time position.

LHS Athletic Department

Josiah
Major: Sport Management Much of my time is spent setting up and tearing down game day events with various sports, such as basketball and gymnastics. During those game days, I would also be taking tickets and handling the money from the patrons, or I would be working the scoreboard for sports like basketball and soccer. One interesting task I had was to research historical conference, district, and regional championships for athletics in order to update the presentation of our athletic records.

Rec Sports Intern

Elijah
Major: Sport Management I helped schedule, create teams, inputting eligibility, equipment maintenance, and running day to day/gameday operations for all home games for middle school. I also worked on budgets, designing and ordering new jerseys, organizing a postseason tournament for adult softball, supporting coaches, and much more.

Game Operations Intern

Zachary
Major: Sport Management My responsibilities included a wide range of tasks that ensured smooth operations for various sporting events. These included pre-game and game-day setup for venues, managing parking and traffic control on football game days, and serving on the sideline as soccer ball crew to support in-game operations, as well as substitutions. Additionally, I operated scoreboards for volleyball, basketball, and baseball games, maintained game statistics for basketball, and assisted with setup and teardown for track and field events.

Viant Medical Fall 2024 Co-Op Experience

Zephaniah
Major: Biomedical Engineering I was on an a New Product Introduction (NPI) line that will produce a remote subcutaneous suturing and stapling device. Tasks related to this included executing test method validations on the line, Process development and assembly aid design, and designing programs for automated data collection and analysis.

Ready for Launch

Ian
Major: Electrical Engineering This rotation I had the incredible opportunity to work on a microsatellite for a company called Spacecoin, this satellite will be launching in late December and is the first launch in the plans for a whole constellation.

Third Rotation Engineering Co-Op

Rylan
Major: Computer Engineering As a co-op I participated in a lot the design of experiment process. This means that I helped create test plans to characterize the problem at hand. It then goes further to then suggest how the problem could be resolved. One of my biggest projects was characterizing changes of the performance of an embedded system after the software was changed. This meant testing the battery to make sure there wasn't an increasing in energy being used and making sure the functionality works as expected.

3rd Co-Op rotation at Rose Medical

Justin
Major: Biomedical Engineering For the majority of this rotation, I worked to update and redesign fixtures used in production so they were easier to use. Another project was to analysis the measurement tools and methods in place for a product and report the results back to the customer. I also took measurements on incoming components when a new shipment arrived.

The Falcons

Dylan
Major: Sport Management Observed the day-to-day tasks of what an athletic director does. Attended a meeting with all the local athletic directors. Worked on the admissions table. Setup for different sports events. Learned how to use the different computer systems they use every day.

Fall 20224 Co-op at EBW Electronics

Logan
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I collaborated closely with manufacturing engineers and technicians to enhance the ergonomics, optimize cycle times, and increase throughput across some of the highest-volume work centers in the facility. Additionally, I supported the ramp-up of new products to full production capacity, ensuring a smooth transition from the safe launch phase to active manufacturing.

Semester 2 in CAS

Izik
Major: Electrical Engineering Some key items I worked on this semester included: adding additional capability to testing equipment, developing cables, developing test station code, managing test equipment, ordering equipment, documentation and sustaining duties.

Magna Mirrors Co-op Rotation #3 - EGR 490

Tyler
Major: Mechanical Engineering Throughout the course of the semester at Magna, I was involved in a variety of projects and tasks that were assigned to me. These projects consisted of benchmarking competitor products, operational checks on products, designing test fixtures, building and testing prototype products, along with running the additive manufacturing room with both FDM and Resin 3D printers. Additionally I would create reports and documentation to provide additional information in terms of benchmarked products along with tested parts for the various projects I was assigned.

Video Coordinator & assistant coach

Cal
Major: Sport Management My tasks were as follows: Organize camera crew, create schedules for all student assistants (SA), train and hold all SA accountable, Upload practice, game video, breakdown all practice, game, opponent's game video, communicate with opponent's video coordinator, assist wide receiver coach on the field at practice, assist with offensive scout team, lead on campus recruiting for next season SAs, assist with operations task around the office.

3rd Co-op Rotation

Freddy
Major: Electrical Engineering I have worked mostly on Outside Mirror products in my three co-op rotations. In this last one, I worked on debugging PCB boards using oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers and DMMs for some projects that are currently being developed. I was part of the testing process in which involves learning customer's specifications and concepts such as EMC and best design practices on the automotive industry. With the Outside Mirror product line, it involves a good amount of building harnesses, making prototype boards and helping the Validation group with any test that needs to be done.

Manufacturing Engineering Co-op

Kyle
Major: Product Design and Manufacturing Engineering I provided support to the production floor by addressing real-time issues and minimizing operational disruptions. I analyzed machine capacity to optimize production targets. I developed a performance tracking system using Excel and Python to monitor key metrics like downtime and output, which helps engineers identify what issues are most important to address. I created detailed process instructions to standardize operations, reduce errors, and empower team members to solve problems independently.

East Athletics Intern

Teague
Major: Sport Management At East, I worked in the athletic department, performing various tasks, such as setting up and tearing down events, working game day operations, Hosting events, and managing events.

Co-op at Phase 1

Isabelle
Major: Electrical Engineering At Phase 1, I completely tasks such as surface mount soldering, EMC emissions scan, GPS sensitivity testing, PCB design, circuit design, data analysis, and RF design.