Internship Podcast Internship: What is an internship good for?

Welcome to the Internship Podcast Number 2 for Summer 2008 brought to you by the Career Services Center at Jacobs University Bremen.

 

Today is the 9th June and just after the release of the first episode of the podcast was the graduation day - the big day - the day that for many of you will come in about a year. The undergraduate address this year was delivered by Gabriela Olariu and allow me to just quote a sentence from her speech that may seem foreign to you, but wait for a couple of weeks of your internship to pass and remember that: “once we learned to live with Jacobs, we could no longer live without it ... it had become that necessary evil, which we needed on an every day basis...”. Congratulations to all survivors!!!

 

And now, before focusing on the topic for this week, I’d like to briefly present you some statistics and comments about the podcast and to thank all those who made their contribution last week about what we can improve.

 

Despite announcing that UK, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland, Apple is not discouraging us to pursue being the first university located in a non-English language country to have an iTunes U page. And the statistics encourages us to continue collecting material that hopefully will one day become part of the Jacobs iTunes U page. 

 

 

For now, we can continue being independent podcasters. Since submitting the podcast to the iTunes directory on Tuesday, we have had an amazing response and interest in the podcast ranking only third in popularity and ahead of Duke, Berkeley, University of Arizona and other universities that cover this topic. So this is good news and encourages us to continue delivering content to you guys.

 

Now, let’s have a look at a couple of the comments that we received. 

 

“this is cutting-edge” Frank Haber, psychological counsellor.

 

“I started laughing when I heard the song at the end. It’s like the song of the day!” Romina Stan

 

Sounds encouraging.

 

“I never really noticed your accent in person” Margaret Parks

 

Hmm - something for me to work on - it is strange how different one can sound in front a microphone. Maybe I should try a different accent every week.

 

Somethings that you, the audience, thought we should work on (and we totally agree) several aspects.  You asked for more pictures and visuals. You also asked for improved technical aspects such as making a smoother transition between the podcast and the song at the end.

 

This being said, we should proceed to the topic for today. As you know, the internship program is mandatory and requires from every Jacobs student a minimum of an 8-week full-time internship. now, why do we want that from our students? What is it in for you? This is a typical question about the internship program and we are here to explain today.

 

So, what exactly is an internship?

 

Well, the online wordreference dictionary defines the verb “intern” as depriving of freedom... Or at least in the second meaning of the verb. 

 

What we mean by it (and what you hopefully experience) refers to the first meaning of the verb: it is about gaining practical experience, about testing your options and finding your way.

 

Lucia has done an internship after her first year and thanks to that internship, she has a clearer idea of what she wants to do next: As I have only completed the first year of my university studies, I do not yet have a precise image of which path I would like to follow in the future. This is why I strive to try as many options as possible before I finally decide which one meets my needs and expectations best.

 

It is in fact a combination of experiences - academic, social, practical, and emotional. It necessitates and also develops creativity, analytical thinking, resourcefulness, reliability, competence, and all the other nouns that one tries to put on one’s CV. Incidentally, don’t forget about the Internship photo contest. 

 

On the academic side, independent of where you are doing your internship (at a research institution/university OR at a company/non-profit organization/government agency), it all boils down to what you have learnt at Jacobs and how you use it. If you have learnt in prof. Boenke’s class that the error variance in the context of analysis of variance is calculated with this formula, where xik is a certain score from a particular subsample, μk designates the mean of the subsample from which the score is taken, k designates the number of subsamples, while n stands for the number of scores in a particular subsample; THEN you may be able to expand on this knowledge and find out that well, you need the error variance to check for a significant difference in this model according to the following formula, where Δcritis the threshold value for the mean difference that has to be reached in order to allow a conclusion that a particular difference is significant, k is the number subsamples in the data, σ2error is the error variance from the F test conducted before calculating the Scheffé test, and Fsig is the tabled F score for the current sample constellation and significance level. Clear? 

 

If you don’t take my word for it, here is what Philipp, class 2007 says about his internship experience at Cornell: My experience at Cornell University played a large role in my final decision to do a PhD and to mainly apply to PhD programs in the US. Applying his academic background from Jacobs to the internship experience, has determined the future development of his career - he is currently doing a PhD at Cornell University.

 

Now that you know how to use analysis of variance (and all the other things you have been reading in the past 1 or 2 years), you can apply them. Learn how the real world works. This is a chance for you to show your employability skills, your flexibility and resourcefulness and all the other skills you have developed at Jacobs. You will learn how your theoretical knowledge (of physics) can be applied in any field (textile friction). And most importantly, you will realize that whatever you are studying now, will not necessarily limit or make your future static. On the contrary, the internship experience will open your eyes to new opportunities.

 

The new experiences that you can acquire will be of equal importance as the skills and theoretical knowledge you have acquired in your classes. Here is what Aiste says about her experience: In my internship I could learn so many things starting from leadership to technical skills. My major being Integrated social sicences, Ih ave mostly related it to the communications module. However, I also gained experience with regards to lobbying, politics, and economics, which proves that it was the right internship for my educational background. In my internship position, I could apply my knowledge I have gained in my classes and I will also be able to use the knowledge I have gained at the company.

 

And it is through the social connection that you will realize these new opportunities. Unless you happen to understand what I said about the formula, you may find the social side of an internship a lot more rewarding. An internship will be your chance for networking. It is a unique opportunity to connect to people. Some connections will be professional, others more personal. In establishing these networks, some of them may be not that strong but could still be useful. Others will be very strong and may result in your future success. Some may be short lived but strong - only for the period of the internship but others may last for years and may bring you back to your internship place after your graduation. And this is important because according to latest statistics up to 2/3 of the jobs are filled via networking. 

 

Here is what Marek says about his internship at Duke University: I have sent my CV and cover letter directly to the professor, stating that my references will be sent to him if he requests. From the next week, I was staying in regular phone contact with him, discussing additional details. Shortly after, he offered me a research position in his lab. Well, he is going to Duke next semester for his PhD.

 

the internship is filled with new experiences and as any new experiences, there could be a lot of emotions involved. You may find it extremely rewarding to be in this new city, were it Paris, London, New York, Singapore or Delhi. You will experience exciting new places, people, and cultures. You may struggle through work, or be exhilarated with your freedom. Make a good use of it - to feel it all the way!

 

And speaking of good choices, this guy spent two months outside the map, with a window view of a hay field and the scent of wild lavender gently tickling the nostrils and apparently it was well worth the ear straining to understand the German speech, the chocolate refraining to get real food and the ceiling staring to make time pass faster. Well, maybe he didn’t have the blast of his time but he surely learnt something - to choose judiciously. that’s me, btw.

 

this being said, don’t forget to SHARE your emotional experiences (as well as your academic, practical and social ones) with your peers by simply sending us your pictures, text messages, audio recordings, and smiles. Send them to us and we will include your stories in the shows to come.

 

Let me remind those listeners who would be doing their internships next summer that they can find all the relevant information on the CSC website at www.jacobs-university.de/csc/internships/.

 

You can now also reach us at Twitter.com. we will be sending twitts from time to time to keep you guys up to date about the craze we go through during the summer holidays.

 

This were the tips for this week. Feel free to contact us at k.mihov@jacobs-university.de, i.folkerts@jacobs-university.de or l.godineau@jacobs-university.de. 

 

Today’s performance, with which we also kicked in the beginning, is called “Toys on a shelf” by the band A Step Behind from their album Since We Can’t Have Forever. The music is provided courtesy of the Podsafe music network.

 

Stay tuned for the next pod show next week at the same time. Don’t forget to subscribe to receive the pod casts as soon as they are uploaded on the server.  Thanks for listening.