Every semester, there are openings in local businesses for college-age workers to complete projects and tasks that help the businesses run more smoothly. Often, they're called internships.
Also on a semesterly basis, there are students who take the term off to get hands-on, real-world experience in their major fields of study. Often, they're called interns.
It seems these two things would naturally fit together in a college town, creating a partnership that would allow Muncie businesses to be supplied with all the interns they need and Ball State University interns with all the jobs they desire.
However, in this city, that's not how it's been happening - to the detriment of parties on both sides of this town-gown divide.
Instead, at this semester's career fair where more than 130 businesses planned to solicit interns, fewer than a dozen of the companies were based out of Muncie. Several were from Indianapolis and the majority came from other Indiana cities or the Midwest, but Muncie companies - which had the shortest distance to travel - were severely underrepresented.
To increase the number of local internships available, the university needs to make an effort to solicit potential internship offers, advertise Muncie internships better and possibly even make special arrangements with some companies to feed interns directly to them. At the same time, it will require Muncie companies to look to Ball State and see that the university serves up a competent and eager temporary workforce every semester.
Even more so, it might take an attitude change among the interns themselves. If students open their eyes to Muncie opportunities - rather than first looking outside the city for positions - they might be surprised by the diverse options they would find.
Through cooperative internship coordination, some progress can be made in combating the town-gown stigma. The city and university might want to get cracking on the project, though, as every year more majors are making internships a graduation requirement and more students are signing up for them.
Better to plan now to increase internship opportunities, rather than to discover a shortage later.
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