Getting Ready for My Internship

By Claire T.

This summer I will intern at the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, focusing of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health. For this internship my supervisor and mentor is the Consultation Manager for Region 2. My supervisor oversees all offices in King County, including Seattle, Tukwila, and Bellevue.

For the duration of my internship I will work alongside Safety, Industrial Hygiene, and Risk Management consultants. I will be contributing to a team that helps small businesses in high hazard industries to develop safety and health programs.

I got this internship in a little bit of an unusual way. After a field trip to the L&I Tukwila office (shout out to graduate Ali for setting up the visit) for an informational meeting with some of the regional managers, I discovered an interest in their consultation department. Every year the compliance side of L&I has an internship program and takes on interns, but their consultation side did not have internship positions. After the informational meeting I went up and talked to the Consultation Manager to ask if he would even consider taking an intern on in his department. He seemed open to the idea and we set up a time to talk about possibly creating an internship position. In the end they were able to create the position!

I am really excited to take some of the knowledge that I learned in my coursework and really dive deeper into its practical application. I am also very excited to work with the Industrial Hygienists and learn about all the sampling they do and the instruments they use.

Leading up to my internship as well as my first couple days, I was nervous about what I needed to know to be successful. I was concerned that I wasn’t going to know enough information to be helpful or that some of the workers might see me as a hassle or an extra duty. Even though the first week of my internship isn’t over yet, those fears have already mostly gone away. Everyone is very friendly so far and generally they like to explain their roles within the department.