Hello everyone, my name is Sonia and I’m going to be a senior at VCU! I spent most of my summer as a Water Quality Program intern at the Virginia office of the Alliance. I’m majoring in Environmental Studies, so I found my internship experience very exciting and useful! I enjoyed having different tasks every day and helping out in the office with the RiverTrends data, but I always looked forward to spending time outside with Amy Hagerdon to do a stormwater site assessment! It was a great learning experience and I liked informing others about stormwater runoff management practices and making recommendations for their property. I also enjoy doing water quality monitoring and collecting valuable data that assess the condition of our waterway that flows into the Chesapeake Bay!

I’m glad I was able to help with the Back to the Bay event this year and interact with different visitors and organizations. It was awesome seeing other people participating in such an educational and fun event. I was also able to assist with a water quality monitoring training session and liked that I was able to help volunteers make positive changes to the environment and create a sustainable future for the Chesapeake Bay.

With such a wide variety of career possibilities in my field, I feel very lucky to have had this internship as part of my college experience and I learned that I love doing field work and data collection. I’m excited to apply the new skills I learned in my future career. Whatever I’ll be doing, I hope to continue being part of a team that works hard towards improving the quality and condition of the environment and spreading awareness about environmental issues.

For my next adventure, along with my final year as an undergrad at VCU, I will be doing research on climate change in the Arctic for a documentary. Thank you, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay for providing me with an amazing internship experience and being part of my journey!