Northeast

Contact: Katie Swick, Recruiting Representative Northeast Region, 603-543-1700 ext. 290, email Katie.

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To search for Internship opportunities currently available with SCA, click here.

Entering her second year as the Northeast Recruiter, Katie Swick has enjoyed a great year of living in Vermont and working for SCA.  She is happy to be recruiting around the Northeast and back on her home turf of New England after moving back from three years of living in Knoxville, Tennessee. A native from Maine, she graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a BA in Anthropology. With public service being one of her interests, she persued life after college by traveling and doing community service.

Katie completed a year of Americorps*NCCC based out of Denver, Colorado and then later a year of Americorps in Knoxville. In between, she was an instuctor for people with develomental disabilties in Plattsburgh, NY, spent 4 months in India volunteering, and worked at a Maine state park two summers. Her last (and greatest) adventure was an SCA environmental education internship in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at Purchase Knob, North Carolina. Katie mostly worked with local middle school students doing hands-on, research based learning. The lessons involved using sucky-uppies to examine macro invertabrates, augers to look at soil samples, assessing skills to determine ozone damage on plants, and teamwork to count lichens on trees. Sometimes she wonders who learned more her or the kids. Either way, everyone loved the location- 5000 ft elevation with green fields, gorgeous mountains, and unpredictable weather. Katie is very excited to be helping other people gain new wonderous experiences with SCA.  Katie likes to spend her off time being outdoors (doing many different activities), being with my extended family (which includes my husband, dog, and two cats), preserving foods, traveling, taking photos, and enjoying music.

How did you hear about SCA?

With repeated exposure: posters, friends who did it, searches on types of work I wanted to do.

What programs have you done?

In the fall of 06, I did a three month environmental education internship in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina side at 5000 ft at the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center in Purchase Knob. I was educating local middle school students on air quality research studies.

What a funny story from your Internship?

During one of our programs we would take the kids on a small hike, which lead us past a large cage trap. The kids would often ask if it was for trapping bears and I would say, "No it is for trapping wild boar or hogs". A follow-up question from the kids would be, "What do you do with them?" My truthful response was, "The Park has to kill them because they are exotic, invasive and destructive to the park." Often I would have young boys that would excitedly say "I want to shoot them!" My response was, "Well when you grow up, you can get a job with the Park and do just that!"

What is the best advice that you can give someone who is thinking of SCA, but is not sure if it is for them? (or some other tips for someone who has already applied, etc) ?

Oh there are oh so many reasons why you should do SCA. You will gain experience for your career track, get a better sense of what you want to do in the next phase of your life, make wonderful friends and contacts, get to know areas that are different from where you grew up, and even just realizing what you don't like. If none of those sounds appealing, do an SCA internship to serve your country, others, and the future. Do it now while you are not too tied down or do it to take a break from your current path. Hmm, I think I have convinced myself to do an internship again....

What is your best memory of your internship?

As much as I love working with people, I loved being alone on top of Purchase Knob feeling the whole of being there: feeling the wind- warm and cold, watching the clouds, seeing the colors of the sunrise and sunset, hearing the birds, insects and other creatures, and smelling all the smells. Those are the memories that touch my heart the most.

What is your favorite Park/place?

I can't decide! But I want to thank my parents immensely for taking a family trip across the country the summer after I was in eighth grade. We saw and camped at many, many parks (National in particular) throughout the country. There are so many amazing and interesting places and things to see in the United States; I am very privileged to have visited so many of our natural and cultural landmarks in our National Parks.

Katie's Fall 2009 Schedule