NACE/Chevron Award
San Jose State University— The Internship Journey
Their names, faces, and experiences
are diverse, but the San Jose State University
students who explain how they
searched for, found, and completed their
internships have much in common.
In “The Internship Journey”, a five-module online video series, Jawid Elyacy, Abel Habtegeorgis, Karun Malhotra, Kenitra Rae Newman, Megha Patel, Matt Rampe, Swar Shah, Tin Tran, Ming-May Wu, and Harizo Yaway, along with several employer representatives, exhort students to understand the importance of internship experience, to make sure they land at least one internship, and to do their best during the experience.
“Similar to students on many campuses across the nation, our predominantly first-generation college students work several jobs to offset their college expenses, leaving them little opportunity or motivation to pursue internships,” says Cheryl Allmen-Vinnedge, director of San Jose State’s career center, explaining that her career team wanted to find a way to show students how important an internship can be—and offer them resources to find and complete one or more.
For their work on the video series, Allmen-Vinnedge and her staff are the recipients of the 2008 NACE/Chevron Award. Presented since 1983, the award recognizes and honors a NACE college member for developing a groundbreaking program in the career services field.
Allmen-Vinnedge says the career center team’s goals included “demystifying the process of finding and succeeding in an internship,” and supporting students in developing the expertise, self-confidence, and professionalism to present themselves effectively.
“We wanted to attract students’ attention,” she says. “We thought, ‘Why not find great interns who have had a wealth of experience and tell the story through their words?’ Also, students really listen up when employers speak. We wanted to weave them in as well.”
Finally, Allmen-Vinnedge says, the team wanted to include faculty members’ perspective, on the value of internships.
“The Internship Journey,” launched in the fall of 2007 and narrated by Joe Bucher, a graduate student in counseling, uses a yellow “Road to Success” icon to tie all the elements together in modules titled “Experience the Adventure,” “Why Internships?”, “Prepare for the Competition,” “The Search,” and “Tips for Success.”
Allmen-Vinnedge says that because the career center budget is devoted almost exclusively to personnel, “we had to get very creative.”
Fortunately, she says, the team was able to use an on-campus instructional resource center and the services of an in-house media specialist to bring to life a script that career services staff members wrote themselves.
She points out that Bucher is an intern himself, so his services were part of his work. And, she adds, students, faculty, and employers volunteered for the video.
“I think what’s really important is the reaffirmation of what an employer might say,” Allmen-Vinnedge says. “It comes out from a student perspective, in their language.”
