Three Newman University students — Kelly Lotsu-Morgan, Rebekah Strickbine and Nicole Soto — say internships have sharpened their skills, boosted their confidence and clarified their next steps.
Two found opportunities through Newman’s career fair, while faculty mentors connected another. Together, their experiences show how campus resources, employer partnerships and hands-on work prepare Jets for life after graduation.
Kelly Lotsu-Morgan | McCurdy Real Estate & Auction
Lotsu-Morgan discovered his summer role while making the rounds at Newman’s spring career fair. He delivered elevator pitches to several tables, and when he landed on the booth for McCurdy Real Estate & Auction, he was met with an opportunity: a web development internship.
He spent three months building features for the company’s website, including email templates, time zone tools and databases. Lotsu-Morgan went from feeling intimidated to feeling like he was making a difference, one project at a time.
“After certain projects, my supervisor really started building that trust in me and gave me more complex projects, which is what I always wanted,” Lotsu-Morgan said.
His biggest challenge, however, was the seller portal project, which gave statistics like page views, clicks and the current highest bid in real-time. After three weeks of work on this project, supervisor and Web and IT Manager Jeremy Simon asked Lotsu-Morgan to share his progress with the company board. This led to more feedback and iterative rounds of improvements.
“I feel a lot more competent, and I think I’ve grown significantly after these weeks in the internship,” Lotsu-Morgan said. “Working in a team where we’re communicating with different departments, having meetings regularly and taking feedback is another aspect I’ve grown in.”
In the short term, Lotsu-Morgan’s goal as president of Newman’s student coding club is to help demystify computer science on campus.
“I want to help them see that computer science isn’t as scary as they think it is, and that they can have fun with it,” he said.
In memory of his late father, Lotsu-Morgan hopes to one day launch a telehealth software company that makes medical care more accessible, but he first plans to work as a software engineer. He feels confident that the internship with McCurdy Real Estate & Auction gave him an advantage to pursue his dream path.
“With everything I’ve learned, I feel more capable of building new technologies,” Lotsu-Morgan said. “It also gives me great references — both the CEO of the company and my supervisor.”
Simon witnessed Lotsu-Morgan’s steady professional growth throughout the internship and highlighted his ability to face complex challenges with determination.
“Kelly’s genuine passion for full-stack web development was evident from the start, and he brought a high level of motivation to every project,” Simon said. “I was most impressed by Kelly’s adaptability and teamwork. When faced with complex challenges, he approached them with a positive attitude and determination.”
Kelly Lotsu-Morgan also credits Newman Dean of the School of Business & Technology David Cochran — whom Lotsu-Morgan now works for as an AI engineer — for his mentorship.
“He’s really pushed me to just go for it,” Lotsu-Morgan said. “And every class helps me grow somehow.”
Rebekah Strickbine | McCurdy Real Estate and Auction
Strickbine, an art major set to graduate in December 2025, found her internship the same way Lotsu-Morgan did — across a career-fair table.
“The career fair was a really great experience, and everyone was so friendly and easy to talk to,” Strickbine said. “I walked away with several companies who were interested in hiring interns in my field, and I chose to pursue employment with McCurdy.”
Strickbine was drawn to the opportunity to feel like she was a part of something bigger — in this case, helping everyday people get the most for their land, homes and commercial real estate properties. She designed social media posts and templates, helped interview sellers, monitored the tech side of an online auction and even completed competitor research.
Over the summer, Strickbine worked 24 hours each week for McCurdy. She is continuing her internship this fall, working eight hours each week so she can better manage her coursework in her final semester at Newman.
“This internship is teaching me concrete skills in graphic design and marketing,” Strickbine said. “But it’s also teaching me soft skills such as good communication with colleagues and superiors.”
Strickbine said she wouldn’t have been able to pursue this internship without some key experiences at Newman. She credits her student worker job with University Relations for teaching her more about graphic design, office work and team communication.
“My bosses, Matthew Miller and Amy Brooks, were so patient teaching me about the different design programs and answering all of my questions,” Strickbine said. “That experience, along with my art and design classes, and the Navigator career-development classes have been huge in helping me gain this internship and many other opportunities.”
Like Lotsu-Morgan, Strickbine’s eyes are on entrepreneurship.
“I’ve explored many different ideas over the years, and I think this time of exploration in college has been really helpful for me as I consider my options,” she said. “It’s exciting to see all of the pieces of my life coming together to open entrepreneurial doors, and I’m excited to see how my background in marketing and design will help me in the future.”
She encourages classmates to keep an open mind and “just try it” when it comes to applying for internships.
“It’s easy to get caught up looking for the perfect job, or overthinking whether or not you’d like to stay at this or that company for the rest of your life,” she said. “The great thing about internships is that you get to try out the job, and then take a step back if you want with absolutely no hard feelings. Internships are short-term, look great on a resume and build work skills — the more the better.”
Nicole Soto | Capital III Investments
Soto, a senior majoring in computer science with a minor in data analytics, discovered her love for numbers after stumbling upon an online data analytics course. That spark grew into a passion for programming, algorithms and backend systems — and ultimately led her to pursue a career in technology.
Through the mentorship of Cochran and Assistant Professor of Computer Science Robert Norman, Soto was connected to Capital III Investments, where she completed a rigorous internship. She worked between 32-40 hours each week working with MySQL databases, managing schema changes and writing scripts to automate data refreshes from sources such as AWS S3. She also built and debugged Python scripts for backend automation and integration.
“I am learning new skills and applications that I have not practiced before,” Soto said. “Additionally, I now can see how everything I have been learning — here at the internship and at Newman — applies to real-world cases.”
Her technical projects came with challenges, but Soto said those experiences strengthened her problem-solving skills and boosted her confidence. Working alongside professionals gave her insight into industry standards and how to adapt classroom knowledge to meet real business needs.
Soto credits Newman for opening doors she never expected to step through before graduation.
“Newman has been such a blessing,” she said. “Dr. Cochran and Dr. Norman do an amazing job of helping students reach their goals and getting their foot in the door.”
Like her peers, Soto is also thinking beyond the internship. Growing up in Wichita, she has always had a passion for sports and now dreams of merging that with her data expertise.
“My dream job would probably be a sports data analyst,” she said. “My whole life I have always been surrounded by sports, which is why I wanted to become a physical therapist. But since data is constantly growing and with new applications we can do so much with it, I would love to apply both passions — sports and tech — into one.”
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