From Classroom to Career: Business Students Put Learning to Work
This National Intern Day, Calvin University School of Business is celebrating students who are putting their classroom learning to work in real-world settings. Through their internships, they are solving problems, working alongside professionals, and seeing what professional work looks like day to day.
An internship is often the first time classroom learning comes to life. A business analytics project becomes a dashboard used by decision-makers. A classroom discussion about leadership becomes a conversation with a supervisor.
Employers recognize the value of those experiences, too. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), internship experience consistently ranks among the most important qualifications employers consider when evaluating candidates.
The following four stories offer a glimpse of how Calvin business students are putting their learning to work this summer in project management, human resources, banking, and digital operations.
Reeja Nyachhyon: Managing the moving pieces
Reeja Nyachhyon ’27 is working as a project management intern at Vervint. In her role, she serves as the day-to-day project manager on internal and client engagements. She is also building PMO reporting and dashboards in Power BI and Azure DevOps, contributing to live client work, and supporting cross-functional projects.
The internship has shown her that project management is not only about a well-built plan. It is about momentum, follow-through, and people.
“Projects don’t move because the plan is good; they move because everybody is doing the work every day,” Nyachhyon said.
Vanessa Ortega Tierrablanca: Seeing Human Resource Management from the Inside
Vanessa Ortega Tierrablanca ’26 is a human resource business partner operations intern at Haworth. She supports employee relations, answers attendance and policy questions, helps coordinate employee events and volunteer initiatives, and works on HR projects tied to manufacturing operations.
Her biggest takeaway so far has been the importance of communication. In HR, she has learned, there is no single script that fits every situation.
“One of the most valuable things I’ve learned is how important communication is in HR,” Ortega Tierrablanca said. “Every situation is different, and I’ve learned how to communicate professionally while still being approachable and supportive.”
Drew Wood: Learning the Reach of Human Resources
Human resource management and Spanish major Drew Wood ’27 is gaining broad human resource management experience at Mercantile Bank. His work includes employee benefits, interviews, orientation, and other projects that touch many parts of the employee experience.
Wood has been surprised by the amount of trust placed in him and by how much his work can matter to people across the company. The lesson that keeps surfacing is the importance of communication.
“Everything I’ve worked on can in some way have a positive impact on someone else if I just communicate what I’m doing,” Wood said.
Eli Westra: Understanding Banking as a Team Effort
Finance major Eli Westra ’27 is a digital payments and operations intern at Mercantile Bank. His work includes online banking services such as wire transfers, ACH processing, customer online bill pay, and related digital banking operations.
The internship has helped him understand how many departments contribute to a customer’s banking experience.
“Without good collaboration between departments, customers will not experience the best banking they can,” Westra said.
Classroom Learning to Workplace Application
For these students, internships are not a pause from learning. They are where classroom concepts become real work, giving students a clearer sense of how their skills can serve people, teams and organizations.
