Tim Haverkate, a student in the University of Colorado Denver Business School recently won the Graduate Outstanding Intern of the Year award presented by the Experiential Learning Center at CU Denver. Each academic year, the Experiential Learning Center (ELC) facilitates hundreds of internships. One Graduate and one Undergraduate intern are named as “outstanding.”  The student must be nominated by faculty and employer, have received a score of outstanding on their internship performance evaluations, and submit a recent resume and essay summarizing what they learned from their internship and how the internship contributed to their lives and career plans.

Haverkate earned the honor of Graduate Outstanding Intern of the Year as a result of his exemplary performance as an intern at Kroenke Sports and Entertainment in the in Marketing Department. Paradoxically, Haverkate both used the knowledge he gained through his MBA classes at CU Denver to be an important and productive park of the Kroenke Marketing team, but also utilized his internship to solidify the concepts he had learned in the classroom.

I made great business connections with the people throughout the company. I also got to learn not only about the business that we were working in but about business in general from some people with a wealth of knowledge. They were all very open to sharing what they have learned through their years with me and I feel like this general knowledge was a very large part of the positive internship experience… It really helped me take what I learned in the class room and find a way to use it to benefit a company and see how it works with all the other parts of business. It also helped me to learn about the constraints and why everything that I learn in class is not always executed in business even though it is generally thought to be the best way.

In addition to a certificate and an educational award, Haverkate received recognition through the ELC Website and CU Denver Network and an invite to serve as Keynote speakers for the Spring, 2013 Experiential Learning Celebration and display his internship achievements and accomplishments.

For more information about the Experiential Learning Center or how to find an internship, visit the ELC website, or call their office at 303-556-6656.