High school internship programs!
For students who want to get ahead and partake in real-life work experience, internships may be the key to their success. At Areteem Institute, it is a requirement for students to enroll in our private school internship program beyond taking their usual classes. Our hope is that they will make more informed decisions when searching for the colleges they want to attend and what career pathways they wish to embark upon.
For our purposes, we spoke with relevant Academic Internship directors from three universities: Yale University, California State University, Fullerton and University of California, San Diego.
We are excited to launch a blog series for our parents and students who are interested in making the most out of their Academic Internship experience. Also, we are going to continue interviewing experts on this topic to develop a comprehensive resource on this subject, and provide it digitally for no charge. (To inquire about that, email info@areteem.org)
The experts seemed to agree that students should reflect on the goals they want to achieve when applying for an internship. They should think about the skills they want to develop, their personal interests as well as the fields or careers they are interested in. Students should use the aid of online resources and people they know at school and at home that may help them land an internship interview. Tricia Oliveira, the Director of UCSD’s Academic Internship Program advised that students at an interview should,
“…ask about what kinds of projects and tasks past interns have been involved with, or what a typical day for an intern with them is like,…[also] about the organization or department and their goals, projects or clients. If you know you are especially interested in certain types of opportunities, ask if that will be a possibility, (e.g., in an internship with a news station, you might ask if interns typically have the opportunity to shadow a reporter).”
Lastly, students should further consider whether they want their internships to count for school credits, be paid or if they should go just for the experience. All are valid factors in the kind of internship a student wants to apply to.
Next week, we will continue this blog series on Academic Internships, focusing specifically on the kinds of red-flags you should look for.
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