Join the College's Internship Program !!

The college’s internship office offers an internship partnership with over 700 local and regional businesses, and hundreds of students have been placed in internships that have proved to be enormously beneficial to both the business and the intern.  In many cases, for example, the internships have led to permanent arrangements between the intern and the business.

Benefits of interns to business:

• Students coming into the company would already have some educational background in the fields of business, computers, and/or communications. 
• Students would have the added impetus to do a good job because their grade-point average would be directly affected by their performance. 
• The company would have the opportunity to establish relationships with students that could lead to permanent employment in the future. 
• As the internship program is not a requirement for graduation, the company could be fairly certain that the student who chooses to intern really wants to be there.
• The company would have the unique opportunity to obtain a first-hand look into the profile of tomorrow’s workforce.

What follows is a brief description of how an internship works.  However, although RCC has a general set of guidelines, the internship program tries to accommodate a broad array of varying requirements,depending on the specific realities and needs of a business.

General Requirement

Primarily, the internship needs to be a learning experience for the student, so what the college asks of organizations that offer internship opportunities to students is that the experience be an educational one. 

Obviously, this can be, and is, put into practice differently by every organization.  For example, in a marketing department of a major magazine publishing firm that offers internships to RCC students, the intern’s responsibilities include, among other duties, initiating, collecting and tabulating survey results, gathering statistical information, and assisting in the implementation of direct mail marketing programs.  Other marketing internships, on the other hand, offer students the opportunity to write and edit marketing copy and respond to client inquiries and requests.  In other words,every business has its own strategies and practices, and RCC’s internship program recognizes the varying needs that every company has.

The Company's Responsibility

The responsibility of the business is to provide someone who would function as the intern’s supervisor.  This person would be responsible for:

• Assigning the intern’s tasks
• Monitoring his/her progress
• Providing an evaluation of the student’s performance at the end of the internship. (This evaluation would also need to include a confirmation of the student’s attendance and hours so that we are assured that the student has worked the required amount of time to earn the appropriate credit hours). 

Currently, the college requires that a student put in 45 hours on site for every credit he/she earns during a semester.  Thus, the number of hours a student spends on-site is determined by the type of credit the student is looking for in combination with the number of hours the site organization needs from an intern.  Generally, most of our internships are 3-credit courses,which means that the student works 135 hours over the duration of a semester. However, how those hours are scheduled is entirely up to the student and the company.

The College's Responsibility

The college will provide a faculty member who will function as the academic mentor for the internship course.  This will be the person who will meet with the student on a regular basis to discuss his/her activities on the site and assign the extra work (weekly logs, research papers, etc.) required for passing the course.  This academic aspect of the internship, however, will not be the responsibility of the internship business in any way.  The company’s function in this respect is to provide the evaluation that will play a major part of the student’s final grade.  Also, any concerns  during the internship should be directed towards the internship coordinator or the student’s faculty mentor.  Both individuals are always available for discussion and are easily accessible.

The internship program at RCC offers a very exciting and highly beneficial program to interested businesses and students. Taking part in offering students the opportunity to extend their education into the practical arena can be an immensely rewarding experience. Businesses interested in joining the educational community of the county should call Professor Irene Deutsch, Coordinator of the Internship Program,at 574-4405.