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Balancing Work and School: Face the Challenge!
February 11th, 2011
Image extracted from: Matt in Menlo Blog
Getting back into the swing of things after long summer and winter breaks isn’t easy. It takes time to readjust your schedule and everyday responsibilities to ones that fit your new lifestyle on campus. Spending a beautiful day at the swimming pool will soon turn into spending countless hours in the library. Celebrating with the loved ones at Christmas will turn into celebrating the end of a 10-hour study session for your midterm exams. Sitting down with the family for a nice, home-cooked meal will change into hopelessly searching your dorm room for your last pack of Ramen noodles or Easy Mac. During this time of adaptation, many things can pass you by without you even knowing it – fellowships, study abroad opportunities, and applying for an internship. Many students do not realize how important internships are in terms of enhancing not only your future, but enhancing you as a well-rounded person in the professional world.
Why an Internship during School?
Internships are stepping stones on a career path that you will be on until you finally retire. Doing an internship during your fall or spring semester will teach you a lot about yourself in terms of what kind of work ethic you truly possess. Taking 5 classes while interning at an organization 10-15 hours a week might sound completely stressful and overwhelming, but trust me, there is a lot to gain from an experience like this. Fall and spring internships will teach you how to manage your time in the most efficient manner. Balancing work and school will become an everyday responsibility for you and performing this task every single day will polish your time management skills even more.
Internships offer you the kind of experience that is absent in most classrooms. They give YOU the chance to taste-drive the real world, while teaching you things that most college students never get the chance to learn. Balancing school and work is a hard task but it will be invaluable in your career as it will be a stepping stone for learning about time management and handling several projects at once. Having had this experience will show potential employers that you can get the work done!
The benefits you will receive from a fall internship are endless, but it is up to you to make it happen! So get out there and APPLY, APPLY, APPLY! Hurry, though, time is running out… www.theregionalinternshipcenter.org for all of your internship needs!
Internships: Academic Credit for College Students
January 26th, 2011One of the Most Overlooked Internship Opportunities
Image extracted from: GASC Technology Center Website
When it comes to internships, the vague term “academic credit” can cause a great amount of confusion. Most of the time, students have no idea how to go about receiving college credits for their internships, which hinders them from fully benefiting from their hard work and devotion. Something as trivial as obtaining course credit for internships generates a complete state of puzzlement and perplexity, which in return leaves college students itching for the answers to so many of their internship-related matters. We are going to look at the internship for academic credit process for a local university so that the level of confusion most of you are experiencing is completely wiped away once you are done reading this post.
The Most Common Type of Process
A university that has a process similar to many other colleges is the University of Pittsburgh. The University of Pittsburgh, like many other colleges, has numerous departments and schools. Obviously, we cannot thoroughly look at the internship processes for every single one of these schools, so we will focus solely on The College of Business Administration.
The first thing that needs to be done is that the student who is looking to gain academic credit has to designate a faculty sponsor, which is simply a professor or adviser that they can report back to. This will be the student’s mentor throughout the whole process. The internship the student is looking to gain academic credit for has to be at least 10 hours a week for a period of no less than 10 weeks.
Pass the Class, Get the Credit…It’s that Easy
Along with the actual job, the student has to enroll in an internship class that is relevant to the type of internship. For example, if a student had a marketing position, then they would take the marketing based internship class. The class can either be 1 credit, 2 credits, or 3 credits, depending on how many credits the student wants to earn for their internship. However, this is not really a “class”. It is more of a time to meet with the faculty sponsor so he or she can stay up to date on the student’s internship. The faculty sponsor will assign the student “homework”, which can be anything from writing a one page paper describing the typical day at the company the student is interning for to a 5-minute presentation to get other students aware of the internship position. Midterm and final performance appraisals filled out by the employer also hold weight when calculating the student’s grade at the end of the internship period. Just like any other class, if the student passes, they receive the credits. So get out there, apply, and remember to visit the REGIONAL INTERNSHIP CENTER website for all of your internship needs!
My Internship Experience at the RIC
January 13th, 2011The End of the Road…Or Is This the Beginning?
From the beginning of May to the end of November, the Regional Internship Center served not only as my first internship experience, but an internship experience that I will never forget. Before I started here with the RIC, the word “internship” never really sparked anything significant in my mind. I thought of it as something that students were forced to get so that their resumes would be more appealing to employers when applying for full time jobs. But once I landed an internship with an organization that specialized in internships, that feeling was quickly changed. And with this internship opportunity came the exposure to a sector that I knew little to nothing about – the wonderful world of nonprofits!
A Sure Thing from Day One
From the start of my first day at the RIC, a program of Coro Pittsburgh, I knew that I would very much enjoy my time working for them. From the small yet extremely friendly staff to the unique environment provided to work in, there was no doubt in my mind that this internship was the one for me. This internship was unique in the fact that it let me challenge myself and explore beyond my usual boundaries. I was given the opportunities to break out of my comfort zone and do things that I was not used to doing. I was finally given the chance to interact with others in a professional way. Whether I was dealing with employers, internship seekers, or even both, everything I did taught me something that was previously foreign to me.
This internship also showed me the importance of building and maintaining close relationships with the organizations you come into contact with, which says a lot about the Coro organization as a whole. Not only do they show support for every program under the Coro name, but they provide continuous support for the organizations they believe in, and that is something rarely seen in today’s world.
Ready or Not, Here I Come!
My position as the Program Relations Intern made it easy for me to benefit from my internship because the opportunities it offered and the doors it opened were countless. Never did I think that an internship would open up my eyes to the various organizations, industries, and sectors in the Pittsburgh area, but one did, and I was lucky enough for it to be my first internship ever. Thanks to everyone at Coro, especially those at the RIC who have taught me so much, I am more than ready for whatever the future brings – the road to success and happiness has only just begun!
“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end” – Semisonic