Internships: How
To Find One?
Karen Young Kreeger
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Landing a job after graduation requires a certain
set of tangible skills, but how can you go about
amassing those when you've been a student for
four years? It's that old conundrum-can't get
a job without experience; can't get experience
without a job.
Enter the internship. But first, how do you go
about finding one?
"There are superlative web sites, and in
this day and age that is where students should
start," says Peggy Curchak, associate director
in Career
Services at the University of Pennsylvania.
For instance, the American Chemical Society's
annual Directory
of Experience Opportunities is a searchable
online database of internships, co-ops, and fellowships.
You can tailor your search by region or state;
by area of interest such as environmental chemistry;
or by type of experience such as co-ops versus
internships.
Another website to try is The
Riley Guide by Margaret (Riley) Dikel. Under
the internship heading on this well-established
career advice site there are links for co-op programs,
internships, fellowships, work-exchange programs,
apprenticeships, and volunteer opportunities.
Curchak also suggests looking at websites for
pharmaceutical companies, many of which are listed
in the ACS directory.
To be sure, the Internet is playing a larger
role in connecting students with practical experiences
in industrial, academic, and other settings. Still,
many students find their off-campus training in
more traditional ways. Chris Fetner, a co-op student
at Ciba Specialty
Chemicals Corp. in McIntosh, Alabama and a
junior at the University
of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, found his current
position at an interview fair set up by the university's
co-op department. The program invites company
representatives to the UA campus in the spring
and fall to talk with students. In Ciba's case,
the firm then contacts students if they meet such
criteria as good grades and good verbal communication
for more in-depth, on-site interviews.
Hardcopy versions of the ACS directory are sent
to most chemistry department chairs and other
faculty, as well as university career centers,
where they're shared with students. Kristen Korman,
a senior majoring in chemistry from Rutgers
University, used the ACS directory to target
companies in her home state of New Jersey for
a summer internship. "I sent resumes out
on my own," says Korman, who contacted seven
companies and received callbacks from five, although
by her own estimation she sent her CV out on the
late side-April instead of March. Korman is now
doing her first internship at Bristol-Myers
Squibb.
Erin Diskin, a junior majoring in biochemistry
at Bucknell
University in Lewisburg, PA took a different
approach. Representatives from Bristol-Myers Squibb
came by her university looking for prospective
full-time employees and her department notified
students about their visit. "I asked if they
were looking for people for internships and they
said: 'Well yes, why don't you come down and interview,'"
recalls Diskin. "I always try and interview
with people who come by the school, just in case."
They called her back a month later and hired her
for her first internship, which started the summer
of 2001.
Joe Sundeen, the associate director of chemistry
at Bristol-Myers Squibb, says that he gets between
50 and 75 e-mails each year as his firm's contact
person listed in the ACS directory. Between three
sites-Hopewell, N.J, Lawrenceville, N.J. and Wallingford,
Conn.-the company hires about eight interns per
summer to fill paid internships. The internships
at Bristol-Myers Squibb try to provide an experience
that's very similar to an entry-level employee,
notes Sundeen. For more on internships in the
chemical sciences see his article in the September/October
2000 issue of inChemistry.
Defining the Internship
Describing what an internship entails is complicated,
says Curchak, because the term is used to mean
different types of work experiences: for example,
an unpaid voluntary stint that is career related;
a paid short-term job, such as a summer internship;
or postgraduate internships that can be paid and
as long as a year.
Most internships for undergraduates take place
working alongside industry or academic chemists
in the lab. Also, the majority are paid, especially
those in the private sector.
"A third wrinkle in all of this is the co-op,"
says Curchak. A co-op is usually a semester-long
project for academic credit that involves working
with a company scientist full or part-time on
a specific project. Most are also paid; however,
not all universities sponsor co-op programs. Check
with your career center for the options at your
school.
In Fetner's case, he works full-time when he's
at Ciba and gets three hours of pass-fail credit
for the co-op. He's finishing up his third semester
on a Ciba co-op. Ciba interns only work during
the summer while co-op students alternate between
semesters working on projects at the plant site
and taking classes.
Fetner spent his first co-op semester in an applications
lab where he learned to test dyes and detergents
for strength of color and effectiveness. He spent
his second and third semesters in an automation
lab, working on a computer program for one of
Ciba's manufacturing processes.
"The biggest thing I looked for in my co-op
was to find out if chemical engineering was really
what I wanted to do," says Fetner. He also
says that making the connection from what he's
learning from the textbook to the workplace has
been invaluable, "because as you get deeper
and deeper in your chemical engineering coursework
you use more and more of it here at work."
For example, his supervisor at Ciba keeps track
of what courses he's taking so he can challenge
him with related projects. "I took a course
in thermodynamics and fluids this semester and
my first project is based on a steam-related process
at Ciba."
Garnering Experience
Why do mentors like Sundeen get so many e-mails
about internships? Simply put, because many students
realize the need to get professional experience
before graduation and the job hunt. "Employers
are very loath to hire people on faith, so the
more they can say: 'Yes, I've done that,' the
better," says Curchak.
Students also learn what work is like by taking
on internships and co-ops. It's a chance for students
to develop a repertoire of professional skills.
What's more, it gives them a chance to see the
type of situation in which they might like to
work-academic lab, chemical or pharmaceutical
lab in industry, or a nonprofit setting.
Nevertheless, directories and web sites for finding
internships do cover the gamut of these types
of experiences. Some savvy students even do a
practical internship at an industry lab one summer
and then work in a biomedical lab on a basic research
question the next year. Overall because of this
type of varied exposure before entering the work
world, students can be "more discerning about
their preferences as they move along professionally,"
says Curchak.
Korman, who is working in the Pharmaceutical
Research Institute at Bristol-Myers Squibb synthesizing
a proprietary compound, couldn't agree more. Because
she's graduating in May of 2002, she wants to
find out if this is the sort of work she wants
to be doing upon getting her BS or continuing
on to graduate school.
For Diskin, who is also working on the synthesis
of a proprietary compound, but in the Discovery
Chemistry Department of Bristol-Myers Squibb,
the drive to take on an internship is about independence
and making her coursework and labs finally come
alive: "Part of it is that I'm learning how
to be a real chemist in a real lab, not just following
some notebook procedure that someone's given me."
Karen Young Kreeger is a freelance science writer
based in Ridley Park, PA.
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