In the spring of 2018, Elyse Bax—just finishing her second year at Calvin college—didn’t want to go home. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Bax wanted to stay in Grand Rapids over the summer. Hoping to find an internship in the area, she interviewed with multiple West Michigan companies, sometimes having two or three rounds of interviews before being politely declined.

“I woke up one morning and just thought, ‘I can’t interview anymore’,” said Bax, “I knew that God was asking me to go home, and I felt incredible peace in that.”

She turned to her backup plan: applying for a second internship with computer chip and processor manufacturer Intel in Portland, where she had interned the previous year. After a phone screening and one interview, she was hired.

Two summers of challenge and discovery

Bax—currently a junior studying organizational communication—spent her first summer at Intel as a business operations intern, tracking the career development of other Intel employees. However, as the summer progressed, she took on greater responsibilities which began to overwhelm her.

“I learned pretty quickly when and how I needed to ask for help,” she recalled.

This year, Bax’s responsibilities have again shifted. She is currently working with a group that is marketing various enterprise business technologies, proposing a long-term plan for their customer service website. She notes that now the largest challenge is making sure the website is sustainable after her departure.

Returning to Portland has carried its own challenges, according to Bax: “Emerging from the Calvin bubble has been a struggle, but it’s a good struggle.” She noted that very few people have heard of Calvin or the Christian Reformed Church, and that Portland is a far more secular city than Grand Rapids. “It’s way different, but I think it’s valuable, as the point of an internship is to get you real world experiences,” she added.

Looking back, looking forward

As her internship comes to an end, Bax looks back on her two summers fondly. “I’ve learned how to market a product, and I’ve learned how to maintain a website,” said Bax. “These skills are totally transferable.”

Looking forward, Bax is excited for the fall semester, during which she’ll travel to Honduras for Calvin’s Justice Studies semester. “It will be a complete 180 after two summers in corporate America,” she said, noting that several of her friends have greatly appreciated the trip and have come back with a refined sense of purpose.

Bax hopes to eventually work for some kind of nonprofit or in church administration. “Many nonprofits focus solely on carrying out their mission and doing good, and eventually fail due to issues with business,” she said. “The corporate skills I’ve learned can only help.”