You’re about to graduate with a resume full of top honors and a cover letter that sings. But without a college internship, you’re like a bird without wings. Good thing Augsburg College is committed to helping its students take flight.
The Strommen Center for Meaningful Work secured a grant that will provide paid, career-related internships for juniors and seniors with demonstrated financial need. These Great Lakes Career Ready Internships will be available through spring 2018, outfitting hundreds of deserving students with real-world experiences that lead to a competitive edge.
During the 2014-15 academic year, the Strommen Center facilitated more than 50 paid internships supported by the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation. Center Director Keith Munson said success of the one-year award prompted his office to reapply for funding from the Wisconsin-based non-profit dedicated to helping students reach their full potential.
“Employers expect new graduates to leave college with relevant experiences, which are sometimes unpaid,” Munson said. “In the first year of the grant, we created or converted unpaid internships into paid opportunities that ranged from non-profit agency work to jobs with larger corporations or STEM research positions. In a follow-up survey, almost every student stated that he or she would not have been able to participate in the internship without this grant.”
Munson could fill your afternoon with personal stories about social work students working as youth case managers or biology students shadowing physicians, but you might prefer to hear these stories from the students who are test-driving careers, building professional networks, and cultivating relationships with mentors.
An easy two-step application
Those interested in applying for the grant-funded experience must have junior or senior status at the time of the internship, which is 12 hours per week for 16 weeks during the academic year or a maximum of 25 hours for 10-12 weeks during the summer. Applicants must also be work-study eligible (as determined by the Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and maintain Title IV Satisfactory Academic Progress, among other requirements.
Eligible students apply for the grant using the Augsburg College Human Resource Department work study system. After that, they seek out and apply for an internship through AugPost. Students may already have an internship arranged or they may obtain assistance finding an internship through Career and Internship Services in the Strommen Center, The SABO center, or the STEM programs at Augsburg.
“It’s exciting to think about all the students who are going to benefit from this grant in the coming years,” Munson said. “These opportunities are enriching their studies and helping them pay for school while preparing them to secure top jobs after they graduate. This certainly is rewarding work.”
Dimension 2, Goal 5, Strategy 5: Expand and systematize experiential opportunities.
—by Kate Elliott