Thinking Outside the Classroom
“I have never felt more prepared to work in a professional setting.”
– Lauren Bagby ’19
Hometown: Norwalk, Iowa
Major: Business Management
Minor: Communication Studies
Campus Activities: Softball and Admission Ambassador
Scholarships: Presidential Scholarship, Community Service Award, Trustee Scholarship, Root Scholarship
Central College’s emphasis on experiential learning helped Lauren Bagby ’19 choose her academic path and career goal.
She is a three-time intern, first in health care administration with Pella Regional Health Center, then in community and economic development with Aureon, a Des Moines, Iowa, business solutions company and finally with the Knoxville, Iowa, Chamber of Commerce.
Before the internships, Bagby was heading for a career in health care administration. But while interning, she found she liked community and economic development better. She now plans to pursue a master’s degree in business and management with an emphasis on public relations and professional development.
“Central made getting internships easy,” Bagby says. “The Career and Professional Development Center sends out a lot of emails about internship opportunities, and Director of Career and Professional Development Jess Klyn de Novelo is awesome.”
Central’s experiential learning pairs with coursework for a holistic approach to learning. For Bagby’s public relations class with Professor of Communication Studies Linda Laine, she worked at the Jasper County Mental Health Coalition. “Everything we did there directly related to what we studied,” she says. “I got a better sense of what I want to do in the future because I enjoyed the real-life application so much. I have never felt more prepared to work in a professional setting.”
— Profile written by: Marin Harrington ’21