Remember when the word “summer” was synonymous with staying out, sleeping in, and maybe working a part-time job just to earn a little extra cash?
Many of today’s students are instead opting for a more productive summer break, one that can complement their college education and perhaps provide another kind of “break” – into their future.
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Maria Markos, a junior at the University of Rhode Island, has a summer internship in the accounting department of Coken, an electrical contractor in Warwick.
“I always thought about an internship as being people watching over my shoulder going ‘Is she doing that right?’” she said.
Perhaps to her surprise, Markos has found her experience at Coken to be the opposite.
“The people at Coken are really incredible,” she said. “They’ve given me the kind of training and mentorship that will allow me to go into any work setting. They’ve given me room to grow.”
Her internship, which started at the end of May and for which Markos works a 40-hour week, is with the accounts payable section of the accounting department.
“It’s just one section of accounting, but it’s definitely helping,” she said.
Her interest in accounting began in high school.
“It came naturally to me,” Markos said. “I knew I wanted to be some kind of business major. I just loved it.”
How has her internship helped her, in terms of career selection?
“It’s definitely convinced me that I want to do accounting,” she said. “I’ve definitely gained more of an understanding of the industry through Coken.”
Coken offered Markos a chance to remain with the company part-time once school resumes in the fall. She accepted. Markos said she plans to work with them until she graduates from URI, and enters the workforce with a degree and experience.
“You can say ‘I like doing it in school,’ but when you’re out there actually doing it, then you know,” Markos said. “I can’t even explain how much it’s made me think about my future.”
URI’s Career Services Center helped Markos refine her resume, write cover letters and find her internship.
“The upswing in the economy is causing employers to rethink their college recruitment programs,” said Bobbi Koppel, URI’s director of career services. “They really have to develop those relationships – there’s some competition out there.”
Still, according to Koppel, some things don’t change.
“There’s still a lot of anxiety about finding a job,” she said. “Students still believe that old mythology that employers are all looking for the same skill set. The other constant we find is that there’s no substitute for someone to talk to you one-on-one.”
Career counselors are in demand.
“Colleges and universities can’t have enough of those people,” Koppel said. “There’s a need to understand how to build careers and achieve balance.”
For the second year, Bryant College offered students a different type of opportunity – to visit China as the second component of the school’s “Environmental Studies of China” class, which fulfills a science requirement.
The students travel with Bryant science professor Dr. Hong Yang.
“The study trip has multiple goals,” Yang said. “First, it fulfills a course requirement. Second, the students can experience a totally different culture on site, and third, this trip integrates science and business and provides students with an increasing emphasis on globalization.”
Yang said experiences like this one can provide students with a first-hand look at the topics they discuss in class.
“As an old American saying puts it, ‘Seeing is believing,’” Yang said. “Nothing can substitute a real experience. For example, we have discussed the pressure population puts on the local environment. It is somehow difficult for me to describe how crowded it is in some Chinese cities. They have to experience it in China.”
Rodd Pedrotti made the trip with Yang. An English major, Pedrotti will be a junior when he transfers to Brown University this fall.
“It’s hard to pinpoint my favorite part of the trip,” he said. “One would have to be seeing the terra cotta soldiers.(the life size collection of terra military figures discovered in a burial site in northern China and now on public display) It was like a dig site from an Indiana Jones movie.”
Seeing China with Bejing native Yang was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“Dr. Yang did a lot of planning for this trip,” Pedrotti said. “To go to China with him was the ultimate experience. Visiting gave me a better impression of the entire culture. Everybody was friendly. I met some nice people. You don’t realize what it’s like until you’re there.”
When the group toured Nanjing, they spent time at its “English Corner,” where locals gather weekly to practice English. Some people didn’t speak English very well, but they spoke the language “better than I speak Chinese,” Pedrotti laughed.
Pedrotti told his new friends he was from Massachusetts, and was surprised to learn that they had all heard of MIT. They thought his major – English – was a joke.
“They thought I was taking the easy way out.”
Whatever career path a student takes, and whatever tools and skills he uses to get him there, URI’s Koppel stressed that “work is not just making money. It’s like going on a vacation. Sometimes you see a sign telling you to go someplace and you say ‘That sounds good,’ but somebody ends up telling you to go someplace different, and you do. You get somewhere just as good or better.”
