Career Services Will Guide You on Your Way

Thinking about doing a co-op or internship? Working in a real world environment can certainly prepare you for life after college, but where do you start? That is where Career Services will come to your rescue. With the help of the staff and their up-to-date resources you can find a company or program that will suit your needs, fulfill your requirements, and give you the experience you need to compete in the job market after graduation. The best time to do an internship is during the summer and after you have achieved sophomore status. You also have to have at least a 2.00 GPA, and be enrolled at least half-time. The Career Services will guide you through the process of starting an internship. They can suggest places pertaining to your major that will fit what you are interested in concerning your field of study. A useful resource on campus, JobCat, is a recruiting system Career Services provides to help students with getting work experience and finding internships. JobCat has many functions, but its priorities lie in finding jobs and internships, on-campus recruiting events, posting resumes, scheduling interviews with companies, and other career-related events and information. Once you find where you want to do your internship, you can then begin setting it up. Career Services will again help you understand all that is required for your internship. In short, you must register for 1-3 hours of class credit, work a specific number of hours, keep work logs, do a final paper, and compose a portfolio with your internship documents in it. To receive academic credit for an internship, students must receive approval and register through their department. Most majors do require an internship or co-op experience, and provide a class to register for. It has a departmental instructor overseeing your progress and who has the final decision for whether your get a pass or fail grade. During your internship you will be required to work a set amount of hours depending on whether you are being paid or not. You will need to keep a time sheet and a work log describing what you did and what your learned each day while at the internship. The work log is especially useful to help you see at the end of your internship how beneficial it has been to your college experience. The Career Services will mail a mid-term evaluation and a final evaluation to your employer to assess your progress and conduct. These evaluations focus on areas such as skill areas, behavioral characteristics, work habits, and professional development. Also, to be fair as an intern you will able to evaluate your employer at the end of the program. You may be wondering what the required paper is about, and why after volunteering or working a semester long internship with an employer you will have to write about it. The paper will be submitted to your Career Services Liaison and the instructor assigning a grade to you for the course. This required report will aid them in assessing your professionalism, improvements, and your understanding of the company you worked for. An internship is an experience that can give you a feel for what your major will provide for you after college. When it is time for you to begin thinking about interning go spend some time in Killian Annex and on JobCat. The staff and resources of Career Services will guide you to opportunities to make contacts in your field and to gain real world experience first hand. For more information about starting an internship contact Mardy Ashe at mashe@wcu.edu or Michael Despeaux at mdespeaux@wcu.edu.