Kaila Bachman, a CELS landscape architect major, is spending the summer in Oregon but don’t think she’s on vacation.

Rather she is doing two internships that should go far in benefiting her studies at URI and eventually her career.

One internship is with the Oregon Zoo, which she estimates is two or three times the size of the Roger Williams Park Zoo.

There she is working with a landscape architect devising plans for a carnivorous plant garden and also a rain garden.

The zoo does not have the money for these projects as yet but once the funding is landed, the plans she is helping put together will be ready to roll.

Besides working on designs, she is also working on cost estimates.

Her other internship is with a small firm that specializes in environmental design. There she is involved with project illustrations for presentations to clients, making up plant lists, devising graphics and working on a green roof manual that can be presented to clients.

“The West Coast is further ahead than the East Coast in certain areas such as managing stormwater,” she says.

“I like it a lot,” she says referring to the double internship. “When I get tired of one, I can turn to the other.” The fact that she has family in Oregon helps too.

Asked which internship she likes the most she says it’s a toss-up. With the zoo, she has the opportunity to get into design and with the other internship she gets involved in production activities that she feels will help her in her future career.

Bachman, 19, will be a junior in the fall. A native of New Jersey she says she came to URI because of its landscape architecture program and because she wanted to go to school in New England.