Get WOWed: Joys and Tribulations of Administering Internship Grants
Presented by:
Rusmir Music, Assistant Director of Experiential Programs, Brandeis University
This pre-recorded webinar is available on our digital archive! SEE BELOW!
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How should a career center answer the financial burdens of unpaid internships? Universities must increasingly provide internship grants to maintain their students’ competitiveness in the job market. Brandeis University’s Hiatt Career Center awarded 55 summer internship grants, totaling $200,000. This presentation offers a “starter tool kit,” including: quantitative and qualitative evidence of students’ financial needs, creating learning outcomes, step-by-step intake process, ready-made pre-departure workshop, evaluation, and report writing. Get WOWed by Brandeis’ World-of-Work Internship Program!
Introduction:
The buzz around internships is ever increasing: internship questions are asked as early as Admissions tours, hiring managers underline importance of good experiences in job searching, and some employers only hire their previous interns. It seems that everyone wants an internship, but not everyone can afford one. Unpaid internships unfortunately remain a standard, with a slim chance for change. Given the need for internships, financial burden on students, and the reality of unpaid internships, Universities are finding they must close the gap by paying the students themselves through internship grants.
Purpose:
With the discussion of changing employers’ compensation best left to other venues, the purpose of this presentation is to elaborate how our Hiatt Career Center secured and subsequently awarded $200,000 in internship grants. Attendees will walk away with an incredibly useful “starter tool kit” that they can use at their institutions in order to advocate for funds and/or successfully manage the program implementation.
Professional Competencies:
Leadership and Management professional competency will be addressed through the presenter’s perspective of a project manager, administering a program significant in its physical scope (creating the logistics for taking in 150 applicants and distributing 55 awards) and University attention (reports were sent to President’s office, Communications, Alumni). Our center became a leader on campus through this attention, creating many new partnerships. Similarly, because of the large scope of intake and reporting procedures, Technology was (and remains) a critical issue, forcing us to investigate creative solutions that would help us meet the goal of helping all applicants and awarding the best ones.
Program Outline
- Background and evolution
- Program parameters
- Writing program Learning Objectives
- Timeline
- Student application
- Decision-making and notification
- Pre-Departure Workshop
- Summer communication with fellows
- Evaluation
- Unforeseen circumstances
- Summary and lessons learned
Learning Objectives
As a result of this presentation, the participants will:
- Understand the institutional motivation for implementing internship funding programs;
- Dissect Brandeis’ model for student learning outcomes;
- Gain insight into evaluation methods set up following learning outcomes
- Be familiar with our assessment tools;
- Learn about online technology that can greatly assist in program implementation;
- Possess a tool kit of relevant resources, such as student application, decision-making rubric and criteria, letters of recommendation, pre-departure workshop;
- Discover a template for continuing communication with program fellows, including relevant articles on mentoring, networking, and reflection.
Three questions that each participant will be able to answer:
- What kind of attention from the institution, employers, and students can I expect if a similar program takes place on my campus?
- How do I develop application tools, marketing, pre-departure information, evaluation and assessment?
- What are some of the lessons learned and mistakes I can avoid in setting up a similar program on my campus?
About The Presenter
Rusmir Music (pronounced moose-itch) hails from Bosnia-Herzegovina. At age 17, he left war-ravaged Bosnia and came - on his own - to the United States. Since then, he has lived in San Francisco, Worcester, New York City, and the greater Boston area (Waltham and Somerville).
Rusmir received his BA in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross and his MA in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University. He has worked for Brandeis University for the past 5 years, and currently works as Assistant Director of Experiential Programs in the Hiatt Career Center.
The cost of this archived program is $39.
All you need to view the webinar is Windows Media Player!
