On Campus
Undergraduate students see internships as a gateway to a better job
A quarter to half of all Rutgers students serve as interns before graduating
Rutgers senior Elaine Chu never stopped thinking about her future.
A communication major in New Brunswick, she landed her first internship when she was only a sophomore. Then she got a second, a third, and a fourth. Finally, this past January, Chu secured her fifth internship, a salaried, two-day-a-week position with a leading brand development firm.
Half of those internships didn’t pay, and not all were her cup of tea. But her current internship at G2 Branding and Design in Manhattan seems a perfect match. “I’m taking it all in,” said Chu, who will graduate in May. “Account management, branding concepts, creative briefings.”
As undergraduates go, Chu may have been particularly driven to build a résumé studded with preprofessional internships. But the percentage of students who forego casual hourly jobs in favor of formal internships has increased dramatically during the last five years, according to career development specialists on all three Rutgers campuses.
Exact numbers are not available, but career counselors estimate between a quarter and a half of all students nail down at least one internship before graduating, regardless of major. Juniors, sophomores, and even some first-year students are looking for meaningful work and professional connections.
Students hope the experience will guarantee them a good job after graduation. Employers view internships as a tool to eye, and possibly recruit, future talent. Some departments, meanwhile, even grant internship credit.
More than half of internships are
paid. The employers least likely to
offer stipends are media
companies, public relations firms,
government, and nonprofits.
Internships more likely to pay are
in technical fields, such as finance,
accounting, engineering, and
science.
“I’m not sure I’d label an internship a prerequisite for launching a career, but I’d certainly recommend it,” says Jim Marino, director of the Career Center in Camden, who introduced a credit internship program for Camden College of Arts and Sciences students in 2002. A similar program will be offered in New Brunswick starting next fall, creating an internship track for School of Arts and Sciences students and a co-op track (full-time, six-month assignments) primarily for business, engineering, and computer science students. Students who complete approved internships, working at least 180 hours during the semester, will get 3 credits; co-op students will earn 6 credits.
“Experience in a professional setting not only helps clarify career goals and develop professional skills, but may also positively influence learning in the classroom,” says Richard White, director of Career Services in New Brunswick, who will teach the internship track classes with staff director Tammy Samuels. “The university has come of age in recognizing that work does not have to be immediately relevant to the major. A history major may be more interested in pharmaceutical sales than in being a museum curator.”
Chu said she arrived at college undecided about a career, unlike many of her friends. “A lot of my friends were pharmacy majors. They had their whole lives planned out for themselves,” she said. “I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was, like, in panic mode.”
Once she chose a major, she decided to use internships to explore career options. “I began testing the waters,” Chu said. “I looked at marketing from different sides. I acquired a frame of reference.”
Historically, most undergraduate internships were in business and engineering. As technology and the internet exploded in the late 1990s, opportunities multiplied and spread into every field. Today internship directories are thicker than phone books, offering spots at organizations as big as Coca-Cola and as small as the New Jersey Historical Society. And between 25 and 30 percent of employers who recruit at Rutgers career fairs say they are looking for “all” majors.
More than half of internships are paid, according to White. The employers least likely to offer stipends are media companies, public relations firms, government, and nonprofits. Internships more likely to pay are in technical fields, such as finance, accounting, engineering, and science.
Lauren Buckle, a communication major in New Brunswick, got help finding her first internship by joining the cast of “The Intern,” an online reality show produced by White’s office. Six juniors selected for the show received coaching before setting out on the hunt and blogged about their experiences. Buckle ended up with an internship in public relations (unpaid, but with a travel stipend). She liked her colleagues, but not the work. “I found I hated talking to newspapers and calling to try to pitch the product,” she said.
She used her own networking skills to land her second internship, at Ethicon, the global medical device company in Somerville, New Jersey. Buckle interned there last summer, and was asked to stay on this year. Ethicon has since offered her a position after she graduates. Buckle, who admires the company’s technology and is proud of its products, is thrilled.
“So many of my friends are sending résumés out and not getting anything back. They don’t have any connections,” she said. “I’m so glad to be in this position.”
An unpaid internship may be out of the question for students who need to earn money for tuition or other expenses, according to Thomas Hopkins, director of the Career Development Center at Rutgers–Newark. “Though, we can find them one for, say, 10 hours, which would allow them to also have a paying job,” he said.
While working for free can be frustrating, an unpaid internship can prove very rewarding, said Kelly Kroeper, a history major on the Newark Campus who used the internet to scout out an internship last year on Rachael Ray’s daytime TV show in New York. Every Tuesday and Thursday, from January through May, she left her Camden dorm at 5:30 a.m. to make the three-hour trek to the studio.
“It was one of the best experiences I ever had. It helped foster my independence, and it gave me my first real taste of the world,” Kroeper said.
For information about internships on Rutgers’ campuses, visit the following sites:
Camden cc.camden.rutgers.edu/facultystaff.html, with a separate guide to business internships at http://cc.camden.rutgers.edu/studentsNEWfinding/CASInternship.html
Newark cdc.newark.rutgers.edu/CDC/STUDENTS.htm
New Brunswick careerservices.rutgers.edu/internships.html