Internships can provide experience, knowledge

By Megan Finnerty
Features Editor

Mike Nielson polished his cover letter, tweaked his résumé, licked some stamps and sent out his applications. Now he’s waiting.

The junior in the School of Management is looking for internships related to his field of study to better help him understand what he wants to do when he graduates.

Typically, most students search for internships during the winter of their junior year and work before their senior year. Nielson was ahead of the curve when he interned in Chicago last summer with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.

"They had a seminar in Stewart (Center)," he said. "I handed the representative my résumé, went through three interviews — the third was with the head agent — and he offered me the job."

Kay Henry, coordinator of career services at Purdue, teaches a class on how to get an internship that teaches everything from how to write a cover letter to how to write the thank-you note following the interview.

"First step, put together a good résumé; second step, look at what you want to do and where you want to do it and then look for companies that work with students from your school or hire students with your major," she said.

When students are looking for internships, Henry said, they should find a company that has the type of job they hope to do someday.

"An internship is getting to know that company, getting to know the environment and finding out if that’s what you want to do," she said.

After students have organized their application materials and selected where they want to work, they send their information to a contact person at the company of their choice. Henry said that within a week students should call to make sure the company got the résumé.

Benny Benedetti, a junior in the School of Science, was lucky when he sent his résumé to Check.com, an e-mail outsourcing company.

"I know one of the CEOs of the company through my family and I just called him up and told him I was looking for a job," he said.

Even though getting the job as a graphic designer for Web sites was easy for Benedetti, his internship involved several late nights and two hours of commuting each day.

"Some deadlines were stressful; we did Budweiser’s e-mail site and that was stressful because there was so much to do and a lot of things to put together at the last minute," he said. "We had to stay late to finish everything."

Nielson was challenged from the beginning when he had to pass the

Illinois State Life Accident and Health Insurance Exam in his first week.

And after that, his internship, rated one of the best internships in the United States by The Princeton Review, got extremely demanding.

"You have to line up clients and be in the office at 7:30," he said. "We had classes three days a week which taught us the different types of life insurance, how to sell things — everything we’d need to know. You really have to perform; you’re not just sitting there; you’re a salesman, you’re your own boss, you’re taking tests, you’re sitting in classes, you’re really getting a lot out of it."

Like Nielson, Benedetti was challenged, but eventually grew comfortable with his responsibilities. Over his four-month internship, he was able to develop a product handling company's internal e-mail, file storage designs and countless graphics for different programs.

"It let me be really creative; it was fun," he said.

Henry said, "I like to see a student stick it out and make an internship into what they want it to be," she said. "If it’s not what you want, go talk to your supervisor. If you’re bored, ask for more work. If you’re swamped, ask how you can better prioritize your time so you can get everything done. Always talk, always communicate and let your supervisors know what you need and want."

She said common problems for interns involve communication and getting along in the work place. Some students, Henry said, have a hard time working with an older group of people who are already established. Overcoming this, she said, involves getting co-workers to accept students and know that they are not a threat but are there to help.

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Features editor:
Megan Finnerty

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