Luther senior Mugwagwa interns at Cambridge Investment Research, Inc.

Developing information technology skills while also taking financial structure courses and job shadowing, Luther senior Charles Mugwagwa spent his summer as an intern with the Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., in Fairfield, Iowa.

Mugwagwa, the son of Zvinei Mugwagwa of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, is a 2014 graduate of Waterford Kamhlaba – United World College of Southern Africa. He is a computer science major at Luther.

Among his job duties as an IT help desk/desktop support intern were building and decommissioning machines, setting up password resets, unlocking user accounts, installing printers, upgrading phones, setting up standing workstations, changing seating assignments, helping with new hires and terminations, solving link clone issues and helping with other technical support issues.

In addition, he had the opportunity to job shadow a Structured Query Language developer and take classes to learn more about the financial market. His courses included “Broker Dealer 101,” “Office of Supervisory Jurisdiction Structure,” “Securities,” and coursework dealing with working in a multi-generational setting.

“All those classes helped me get a better understanding of the financial industry and the good habits that are expected from professional workers,” he said. “My summer internship made me more comfortable with IT helpdesk/desktop support and open to having that position as full-time employment after graduation.”

Approximately 10 percent of Luther students take an internship for academic credit each academic year. The Luther College Career Center assists students with their internship search through resume preparation, networking, online internship searches, career fairs, on-campus interviewing, and connecting the student to alumni through the college’s Alumni Internship Program. Students also meet with a faculty adviser prior to the internship to create an internship learning plan that includes learning goals and assessment benchmarks. An internship work supervisor assists in the process by writing an evaluation of the student at the end of the internship. Students also complete a self-reflection form to help finalize the learning experience.

A national liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,050, Luther offers an academic curriculum that leads to the Bachelor of Arts degree in more than 60 majors and pre-professional programs. For more information about Luther visit the college’s website: http://www.luther.edu.