This post was written by Alex Lassiter a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina and current member of the InternMatch student advisory board. The board is an independent group of seven current students and recent graduates that meets once a month to discuss key issues and challenges for students looking to transition into the professional world. The board has unique insight into the tools and resources that students need to be successful in the career process.
Our panelists cited multiple skills they wished they had during the course of their internships; however, most noted job-specific tools as largest disconnect between college and internships. Skills in job-specific software like Microsoft Excel and TweetDeck topped the former intern wish-list. But who is responsible for teaching these skills, and if they were available, would students take advantage of them prior to starting their internship? The answer to the latter is likely dependent on the student; however, to encourage students to take advantage of intern-prep, some universities offer job-specific ‘boot camp’ classes to students who are interning in a specific field.
One example of this is UNC-Chapel Hill, who offers a class for future investment banking interns. The curriculum targets banking specific software like Bloomberg, and CapitalIQ, which enables students to learn the practical skills needed to succeed during their summers. Still, with many career departments facing strained resources, the majority of universities can only afford to focus on preparing students to get the internship. So, who can provide students with these extra services? This is where the board feels that InternMatch can help. InternMatch could give prospective interns crash courses in job-specific tools, thus enabling students to better succeed during their internships.
The implementation of such a plan would require more planning and testing to determine if students would take advantage of the proposed service.
Please respond with your thoughts on the topics mentioned above, or any other topic we discuss. We welcome all comments and questions, and would love to hear from you.
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