Internship Panel Summary

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?