Summer is here and many students are using the break from classes to get the internship credit and experience they need for post-grad life and graduation from the University.

Incoming junior Kaylie Hodge is a student at the University who is spending her summer interning for WTOL, focusing on meteorology.

The University does not offer an actual meteorology program, according to Hodge. However, there are classes offered through the Geography department that are related to meteorology such as Weather and Climate. Hodge said she is enrolled in an individualized planned program through the University with a dual focus in meteorology and math, since there is no actual meteorology major.

Hodge developed her passion for meteorology at a very young age.

She said she was home-schooled when she was younger and basically learned how to read from her mother’s meteorology books and she has been intrigued by the topic ever since.

She got the internship through a family connection, she said. The internship is unpaid, but three credit hours are still given.

Hodge has been interning at WTOL since mid-May and has expressed a high appreciation for all the people that she has worked with there thus far.

“Everyone is going 100 miles a minute,” Hodge said. “But they are all still so friendly.”

Hodge is mostly shadowing employees at WTOL for now, but she has already had the chance to work with people such as Kimberly Newman.

She has done tasks such as updating the weather homepage for Newman, she said.

“I am just seeing what it takes to do the day-to-day duties of a meteorologist,” Hodge said.

One task that Hodge anticipates doing at some point in the internship is making her own forecast.

In addition, Hodge hopes to gain experience from working with green screen in order to make demo tapes and become a certified meteorologist someday.

After completing the internship at WTOL and graduating from the University, Hodge also hopes to go to Oklahoma to receive her master’s degree.

She said there would be a lot of different types of weather to broadcast on in Oklahoma and other parts of Tornado Alley such as droughts and flooding.

“The weather out there is interesting,” Hodge said.

In addition, Hodge is highly interested in participating in tornado chasing while in Oklahoma.

All in all, Hodge is looking forward to continuing the rest of her time at WTOL and with pursuing her future career as a meteorologist.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this if it wasn’t for the great support and the people at WTOL,” Hodge said.