{"id":3879,"date":"2017-01-06T21:08:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T21:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/?p=1606"},"modified":"2019-06-12T10:23:58","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T15:23:58","slug":"melissa-cairns-16-adventurous-internship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/2017\/01\/06\/melissa-cairns-16-adventurous-internship\/","title":{"rendered":"Melissa Cairns ’16: Adventurous Internship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Challenging. Adventurous. Fun. And outdoors. That\u2019s what Melissa Cairns \u201916 was looking for in an internship this past summer. She found all that and more when she was hired as a Class V whitewater rafting guide at Ace Adventure Resort in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

For those not familiar with whitewater rapids designations, there are six classes, and the higher the number, the wilder the ride. According to americanwhitewater.org, Class V, which Cairns guided and was the highest level offered by Ace, is \u201cextremely long, obstructed, or very violent rapids which expose a paddler to added risk. Drops may contain large, unavoidable waves and holes or steep, congested chutes with complex, demanding routes. Rapids may continue for long distances between pools, demanding a high level of fitness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cairns wouldn\u2019t argue with that description. One of the most harrowing experiences for her, she said, was when a raft flipped at a Class V rapid. \u201cWe had kids all \"cairns-melissa-rafting\"<\/a>over the place. I was able to pull one kid back to the raft, and three other guides were throwing ropes to get other people out of the water,\u201d Cairns said. \u201cI ended up standing on a rock holding a raft of three people from going downstream into a feature we call \u2018meat grinder.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In an internship like hers, she said, you have to be someone who can stay calm and level-headed in a situation that requires you to be. That situation required it, and she was.<\/p>\n

When Cairns wasn\u2019t taming the Class V rapids, she served as a guide for paintball, high ropes, mud obstacle courses, kayak tours and stand-up paddle board trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe internship gave me a lot of room to try new things and step outside my comfort zone,\u201d she said. \u201cI think what I enjoyed most was the challenge. Every day was different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cairns, from Tauranga, New Zealand, came to Missouri Western in 2012 to play volleyball because she liked the size of the school and the city. She loved her experience as a student athlete and said it taught her a lot of life skills, especially time management.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also got to be with a team that was as close as a family, and for me that was important. Living so far from my own home, I was glad that I had a team there to support me.\u201d Cairns played volleyball for three years, but decided to give it up her senior year because of several injuries.<\/p>\n

She started out as a biology major, tried philosophy for a while, and then found her niche in recreation sport management.<\/p>\n

That degree, Cairns says, gave her an understanding of what is really needed to effectively run a business, including all the planning and organizing that goes into it. She also completed an internship as intramural games manager for Missouri Western\u2019s recreation program.<\/p>\n

Since she enjoyed both internships, she said her immediate career plans included looking for a job with high adventure, but eventually she\u2019d like to run a college recreation program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to move into a management position sometime, but I do enjoy working as a guide.<\/p>\n

Rafting through white water is dangerous because the water is powerful, but it can be the best time of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Challenging. Adventurous. Fun. And outdoors. That\u2019s what Melissa Cairns \u201916 was looking for in an internship this past summer. She found all that and more when she was hired as a Class V whitewater rafting guide at Ace Adventure Resort in West Virginia. For those not familiar with whitewater rapids […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4385,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3879\/revisions\/4385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}