Ball State University senior Sarah Specht knew she wanted to do a summer internship since last fall, but she had no idea what opportunities were available.
In order to help students such as Specht, a chemistry major, the chemistry department has worked to create more internship opportunities for its students. Between late March and late July, the department established 40 new corporate relationships. Before March, the department had only two corporate relationships - one with Eli Lilly and the other with Pfizer in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Specht said she was able to find an internship through one of the department's connections.
The department of chemistry isn't the only department striving to increase internship opportunities for students. According to the Career Center, 660 students at Ball State enrolled for credit for a paid internship in their respective departments between Summer 2003 and Spring 2004.
"That doesn't even begin to tell the picture of the number who did an internship because many don't even enroll in credit," Sheila Spisak, associate director of the Career Center, said.
Spisak said the number represented the students who completed paid internships for credit in their individual programs. The number has gradually increased within the past few years, she said.
The chemistry department's program currently has 160 students, which is an increase from 113 in 1999. The number of majors is expected to grow to more than 200 in the next three to five years, said Chairman Robert Morris, who met with representatives of companies in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio to increase internship opportunities for students.
While internships are not required to graduate from the chemistry program, he said they benefit graduates in the long run.
"It helps students to get experience in the laboratory setting outside of the college setting, so they get to experience real-world problems and real-world techniques and procedures that chemists have to do every day," Morris said.
Political science professor Roger Hollands was recently selected by Indiana INTERNnet, a statewide program designed to increase internship opportunities for Indiana students, as the 2004 Best of the Best Award Winner.
Hollands, who serves as the department's internship coordinator and graduate adviser, said the department is working to increase the number of internship sites for students. The department, which has 40 to 45 internships each year, has 10 to 15 students in the Indiana General Assembly each spring and about 20 interns in agency and law offices during the summer.
"We encourage students as early as their first year to plan on taking an internship later on in their studies at Ball State," Hollands said.
Like the political science department, Ball State's Miller College of Business also works to help its nearly 2,400 business majors connect with accounting firms, marketing firms, banks and other companies for paid internship credit.
Nearly 145 business students enrolled for credit for a paid internship between Summer 2003 and Spring 2004, Spisak said.
Janice Replogle, director of undergraduate programs at the Miller College of Business, said most students found their own internships through networking or through the Career Center, but the college works closely with students in providing internship opportunities.
"We have more students on internships than before, but I think it's because we've been getting the word out and saying it's the right way to get a job," Replogle said.
In Ball State's Teachers College, 350 to 400 student teachers are placed each semester, because field experience is required for all teachers, Judy Miller, director of the Office of Teacher Education Services, said.
Miller said the college worked closely with about 24 Professional Development Schools throughout the area and would work to develop more partnership schools for its students as well.
"The teachers are better prepared for the classroom," she said.
The Career Center encourages students to do paid internships, but completing an internship before applying for a job, whether paid or unpaid, is a wise thing to do, Spisak said.
"It's important for students to have the opportunity to try out their career field prior to graduation," Spisak said. "It's the best springboard into a professional full-time position after graduation."
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