These are notes taken from the Internship Panel that was the first Student
Science Colloquium. Adriane Garcia-Higbee, Timothy Archer, MESA alumnus Jerome
Carman and Roman Marin spoke about their internship experiences.
Finding an Internship:
There are many paths to locating an internship that is right for you.
- Through a faculty in your major
- If you have eligibility for college work study in your financial aid package,
a faculty can help turn that into an internship!
- College Work Experience (Karen Groppi has on-campus sustainability internships
for units)
- ACCESS: if you have a major in a biomedica lfield
- Internet research: some good things to search on are the acronymns "REU"
or "SULI"
- Get a page on Linked In: a professional networking
- MESA bulletin board has an internships section. Even if there is a posting
for an internship from a previous year, chances are good that the contact
information is still good, and that the internship is a continuing one
- MESA emails sent out to MESA members listserve
- MESA website links
- Volunteering can lead to internships down the road, once people get to know
you and your work habits
- Make your own proposal! Don't be shy--find a local company, prepare a resume
and ask for an appointment for a short interview.
- Job Shadow experiences can naturally lead into internships. The job shadow
is a class requirement for some Engineering classes.
Why Should You Try to Get an Internship?
- There is nothing like real-life experience in the field!
- Internships lead to other opportunities
- Gives you a valuable experience in teamwork of a professional nature
- Most internships pay at least as much as you could make with a job during
that time
- Internships at university campuses let you get to know the institution really
well
- It can give a good introduction to research
- Gives you a chance to test-drive the job!
- You get a different kind of knowledge than what you get from classes--a
very applied kind
- Build professional networks that will last forever
- You can get a chance to know if you really like the field, or NOT?