UA students gain credit, experience from summer internships
Jordain Carney
Issue date: 4/24/09 Section: News
With summer quickly approaching, UA students are scrambling to decide how to spend their break - and to attain some experience and perhaps earn some money, many students are turning to internships.
"An internship is a work-related learning experience for individuals who wish to develop hands-on work experience in a certain occupational field," according to the UA Career Development Center Web site.
CDC officials can help students with the internship process by conducting mock interviews and résumé reviews during their drop-in hours throughout the week.
Students can find internships through academic departments, and many fields of study - including the Walton College Graduate School of Business, the UA School of Law, and the communications, food science and journalism departments - list internship information on their Web sites.
Depending on the department, students can receive academic credit from serving an internship. The political science department, for example, offers academic credit for its students who participate in internships, but some work - including an academic paper - is required on the student's part.
Jacob White, a UA student, said he gained some perspective after he spent a summer installing insulation into houses - and after he "got on the ball (and) put a little elbow grease in," he was able to obtain an internship with Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor's office in Washington D.C.
"I also expect to gain valuable knowledge of how the political process works at the federal legislative level," White said. "It's all well and good to want to get things done and create positive, meaningful change; but that won't happen just because you're motivated and willing. You have to know how the system works and how to use it."
White said he considers that knowledge invaluable and hopes to gain some over his time interning this summer.
Aside from normal internships, the university also offers co-ops (which stands for "cooperative education"), during which participants keep their status of full-time students while working full- or part-time jobs related to their degree. In co-ops, students still keep the status of full-time students while working full or part time in a job related to their degree. There are semester-long alternating co-ops, where students alternate between full-time work and on-campus classes, or parallel co-ops, where students work part-time and attend classes on campus at least part-time.
"An internship is a work-related learning experience for individuals who wish to develop hands-on work experience in a certain occupational field," according to the UA Career Development Center Web site.
CDC officials can help students with the internship process by conducting mock interviews and résumé reviews during their drop-in hours throughout the week.
Students can find internships through academic departments, and many fields of study - including the Walton College Graduate School of Business, the UA School of Law, and the communications, food science and journalism departments - list internship information on their Web sites.
Depending on the department, students can receive academic credit from serving an internship. The political science department, for example, offers academic credit for its students who participate in internships, but some work - including an academic paper - is required on the student's part.
Jacob White, a UA student, said he gained some perspective after he spent a summer installing insulation into houses - and after he "got on the ball (and) put a little elbow grease in," he was able to obtain an internship with Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor's office in Washington D.C.
"I also expect to gain valuable knowledge of how the political process works at the federal legislative level," White said. "It's all well and good to want to get things done and create positive, meaningful change; but that won't happen just because you're motivated and willing. You have to know how the system works and how to use it."
White said he considers that knowledge invaluable and hopes to gain some over his time interning this summer.
Aside from normal internships, the university also offers co-ops (which stands for "cooperative education"), during which participants keep their status of full-time students while working full- or part-time jobs related to their degree. In co-ops, students still keep the status of full-time students while working full or part time in a job related to their degree. There are semester-long alternating co-ops, where students alternate between full-time work and on-campus classes, or parallel co-ops, where students work part-time and attend classes on campus at least part-time.
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