By Julia Vergara | Staff Writer
With the professional world increasingly becoming more competitive, internships are increasingly becoming more crucial to impressing future employers. That is why Baylor’s Office of Career & Professional Development partners with administrative offices and academic departments each semester to offer students the Baylor On-Campus Internship Program.
Through this program, students are able to gain professional work experience right on Baylor’s campus. Departments participating in the program include Campus Living and Learning, the Baylor Bear Foundation (Athletics), Multicultural Affairs, Engineering and Computer Science, Hankamer School of Business and many more.
Internship Specialist Chelsea Waldrop said that students can start applying for the Spring 2018 On Campus Internship Program positions beginning Jan. 2, 2018. The positions will be open for application a little less than two weeks, remaining open until Jan. 14.
“Students will apply with a resume, cover letter and program application individually for each job they are interested in and qualified for,” Waldrop said. “All positions will be listed on Handshake on the Baylor On-Campus Internship Program employer page.”
Mount Pocono, Pa., junior Ebonee Washington from and research intern for the student employment office said that Baylor originally just had an on campus employment program but the internship program was created due to the lack of internships that were available in the Waco community.
“There’s a lot of different opportunities on campus,” Washington said. “They have internships opening up all over because the program is becoming larger so I would definitely tell any type of student to check them out, see what’s going on.”
While Washington is an accounting major, she said her position as a research intern has still taught her a lot about the professional world.
“It’s just been helpful in doing basic things like formatting emails to your boss — stuff like that you don’t typically do in your everyday life, but it’s a good skill to pick up because you’ll have to do it in an office setting,” Washington said.
When she started working in the position, the student employment office was just getting started at Baylor, Washington said. So as a research intern, her responsibilities involved looking into other schools that had already developed a student employment office and getting information from them so that the office could be structured by looking at examples.
Tomball junior Cassidy Latham, public programs intern for the Mayborn Museum Complex said part of her position is job-shadowing and working closely with the public programs manager.
“For this specific position, I work with the public programs manager and we are in charge of creating content for an over 18 audience at the museum and so that just means planning programs that appeal to different demographics,” Latham said.
Latham said that in her position, she gets to see a lot of the behind-the-scenes and corporate aspects of the museum. She has done a lot of presentations for the museum and collaborations with the different teams. For example, she has worked a lot on collaborating with the communications team over the promotion of programs.
The position has also taught her how to create campaigns, do business proposals and business evaluations, Latham said.
“I’m a communications major so it’s been really helpful for learning what I want to do in the future,” Latham said. “I think it really helped me learn how much I enjoy project management.”
Washington said that through the program, 20 hours per week is the maximum an intern is allowed to work. However, she typically works 10 to 14 hours per week.
Since most Baylor offices close at 5 p.m., Washington said that it makes it a lot easier to put your and effort into the internship but still have time left in the rest of the day to do homework or other activities.
“The balance hasn’t been that hard,” Washington said. “They make it easy for you to kind of make your own hours, just through preference and what your schedule looks like. They try to work a lot with you through that to make sure you’re doing your best in classes as well in the office.”
