Students praise Academy of Finance

For his senior project Conner Seegmiller told the panel of judges about his Academy of Finance experience that placed him in a four week internship internship at the Bank of Idaho.

“I don’t think I’ve ever gained so much knowledge in four weeks than this internship,” Seegmiller said.

Before landing the internship, Seegmiller was required to take four financially focused classes, like banking and finance and accounting. The final requirement was to do a 120 hour paid internship over the summer. He helped with everything from customer service to marketing to being a teller.

“It gave me a head start,” Seegmiller said. “I really didn’t know what I was doing beforehand, but after taking the classes and this internship, it’s really opened my eyes to the more professional workforce dealing with banking and finance, and it’s really cool to see the knowledge I’ve gained through that, that I didn’t have before that.”

Kade Fish loved his internship with a local medical lab.

“It was just such a rewarding experience being able to actually be out in the community working hands on in a field that I’m interested in, and through it I was able to see how finances contribute to it,” Fish said.

At first, company’s were reluctant to hire high school students as interns rather than college students.

“They went through the internship process and now they’ve been hired because they realize they’re great kids, and they taught them what they needed to make their business successful, and now they want to keep them on and have hired them through this process,” teacher Bev Hott, who heads of the program, said.

Seegmiller says he worked with wonderful people at the Bank of Idaho. He says the financial focus of this whole program has been valuable.

“I think finance is something that can be taken into any career.”