Experts encourage internships before graduation
One internship before graduation is great, but more than one is even better. That’s what the assistant director of Career Services said when asked about the value of gaining work experience while in college.
“Research shows that over 70 percent of employers prefer to hire candidates who have internship experience,” she said. “In fact, we know nationwide 70 percent of students who do internships get full-time job offers from those employers that they intern with.”
Melissa Shaeffer has worked for 22 years in the internship and career search process at USU and currently serves as the assitant director of Career Services.
She said the word “internship” can be defined broadly.
“When I say ‘internship’ or ‘career-related experience,’ I mean broadly we’re looking at experiential learning,” Shaeffer said, “which includes internships or practicum experiences. Sometimes they’re called ‘externships.’ It’s kind of all brought in under the title internship.”
Shaeffer said only about 20 percent of students participate in some type of internship before graduating, though she would like to see every student gain experience before graduating.
“There’s tons of benefits to students for internships,” she said “It helps in the decision-making process. So, ‘Is this career right for me?’ It takes it out of theory in a classroom and gives it a practical component — so, students are applying classroom knowledge. They’re applying some of the things that they’re learning about.”
She said students also gain networking with professional connections.
“We know that they’re able to quantify their work experience on their transcripts,” she said, “and in a competitive job market, students who have had related experience — preferably in the form of an internship — become far more attractive candidates for employers.”
Shaeffer said internships that give students academic credit are especially valuable, because they show employers there is a link between what the student is studying and the nature of the work they do in their selected fields.
“You know? Learning something and then doing something, I think, certainly reinforces the learning process more,” she said.
Jessica Hinrichs, a sophomore majoring in marketing, said her summer internship allowed her to do “everything from creating advertisements to designing an expo in California and Tokyo.”
“I was hesitant in my major — not really sure if I had what it took to be in business,” Hinrichs said. “This internship showed me that I could do a lot more than I thought I could. It gave me a confidence that I don’t know I could have found anywhere else.”
Hinrichs said she was able to get hands-on experience, network and even gain a better appreciation for her classes as the result of her internship.
“Classes that I originally thought would be unrelated in my field of work now seem to fit into it,” she said. “I feel like I pay attention more in class because I now know how I can use it in the future.
“In my Management Information Systems class we are learning about Excel. Normally I would usually care less, because it doesn’t seem to directly relate to marketing,” Hinrichs said. “After this summer I made more Excel tables than you can dream of. I used them for tracking competitor products and choosing what to advertise more or less of.”
Hinrichs said she plans to do at least one more internship before graduating and has already received an offer from a contact she made during her first internship.
Dean Noelle Cockett, of the College of Agriculture, said about 95-100 percent of agriculture students have jobs during the summer, and 80-90 percent have some type of job during the fall and spring, with about half of those working on campus.
She said she thinks only about 25 percent of agriculture students work directly in their field.
“All work experience is relevant in terms of helping develop students’ work-readiness skills,” Sheaffer said.
“We know our students are well prepared to enter the job market. Those candidates, though, who have career-related experience on their resumes, preferably in the form of internships, are more competitive in the job market,” she added.
Cockett said 50 percent of degrees offered through the College of Agriculture require internship experience.
Among the wide variety of year-round employment opportunities available for agriculture interns are the USU Dairy Bar, USU Soil Testing Lab, the horse facility, George B. Caine Dairy, Adele and Dale Young Greenhouse, Cockett said.
However, there may be such a thing as too much work experience, Cockett said.
“Many students need to secure financial support in order for them to continue and complete their degree. I would like to see people graduate and so I encourage students to manage their work/school situation however they need to so that they can complete their degree. Work experience is good, but it will end up costing the student if it delays graduation,” she said.
She said grades can also suffer if students work more than 20 hours per week.
Shaeffer said some employers posting internships as early as fall semester, while the majority post between January and March. She said students should see career coaches as soon as possible to discuss internships opportunities.
“We deal with students all the way through career exploration, through internships, through graduate school — testing and prep — through employment. So we work with students along that entire spectrum,” she said.
– robmjepson@gmail.com