By Heather Monahan
Features Editor
Scoring an awesome internship is the college version of landing your dream job. You want to tell everyone about it and brag about the cool things you get to do. Intern Spotlight, a program organized by the Career and Professional Readiness Center (CPRC) gives students a bragging opportunity that goes beyond blowing up Facebook news feeds and Twitter.
“The Intern Spotlight is a program where students who’ve had a unique, fun or very professional experience related to their future career can apply,” said CPRC Career Counselor and Employer Relations Coordinator Pamela Burdick. “When they apply, they can get $50 toward their professional dress, they’ll be highlighted on our website and we’re also going to have an intern wall of fame.”
Burdick said she and the rest of the CPRC thought of the program when they noticed the number of interesting internships students were doing.
“We know that (students) are having these really cool experiences, and we think we need to kind of showcase that a little better and celebrate the fact that you’ve done them,” she said.
The program, which is intended to be an annual contest, will feature five winning students. The office of marketing and communications is going to help with photos for the wall of fame, which will be located on the second floor of the Reilly Center.
“We’ll have a picture of the intern as well as a short bio about who they are,” Burdick said. “It’ll say who they are, where they did their internship and a quote about their internship, professionalism or what they learned from it.”
To apply, students simply fill out a form answering questions about their internship experience. However, according to Burdick, there’s a slight stipulation. The internship must be for-credit and a coordinator has to sign off on it.
“For example, if you’re in the School of Business or you’re a J/MC student, you have credit hours you have to get, so that would qualify,” she said. “Say you’ve already done your credit hours and this internship you’re applying with isn’t actually getting sent in to complete those hours because you’ve already completed them. That would still count. We’re not going to eliminate you because you’ve already done your hours.”
Burdick said she hopes the program will have an effect on students, both current and prospective.
“We hope it’s a big motivator to get current students to find internships when they realize they can do them at really cool places and get really good experiences,” Burdick said. “And we hope it’s something for prospective students to realize if they come to St. Bonaventure. This could be an opportunity for them, or they could work with the CPRC in finding opportunities like this and just (learn about) some of the exciting things they can do with their majors that they didn’t even think about.”
Elizabeth Grady, an integrated marketing communications student who is on the CPRC graduate staff, said it should be a good way to introduce younger students to internships.
“It’s a cool resource for freshmen to take note for future reference when they’re looking for internships,” Grady said. “You can still utilize this program just to look at it and see what other people are doing because it’s so crucial, so you’re not crunching at the last minute trying to figure out what internship you want to do.”
Applications for the Intern Spotlight are currently available in the CPRC office and are due Oct. 25. Burdick said the staff is excited to see all the different applicants and hear about student experiences.
“The possibilities are endless with (the program), so we think it’s a really good opportunity to tag into some of the students and their experiences,” she said.
