| “A
lot of time internships don’t pay very well, but they’re
worth their weight in gold.” |
| —
Intern
Sarah Dorr |
|
UM
internships offer
gateways to high-paying jobs
Kara Trummel
used to sit in a classroom in UM’s School of Business Administration
and learn about situations in a business setting. Maybe on one day
she would learn about business ethics and on another she might learn
about how to market her business so it’s profitable. Sure, this
is information that can be applied to the real world, but did it teach
her something she will take with her forever?
“In the classroom you have a case of what ifs,” Trummel
said. “In the real world you get to apply them.” As an
intern at Kennecott Energy in Gillette, Wyo., Trummel worked in the
company’s human resources office developing an affirmative action
plan to help the company increase diversity among its employees. Trummel
then used this internship to get a foot in the door interning for
Deloitte, one of the “big four” accounting firms, located
in Seattle.
At Deloitte, Trummel helped with company audits, ranging from small
companies to Fortune 500 firms. This internship eventually led to
a job offer she accepted as an entry-level auditor in January.
Although Trummel said she values her college experience, she believes
the experience she’s gained through her internships is just
as valuable. “It’s important to have real-world experience
just to know how to work in teams and work with people,” she
said.
Cheryl Minnick, internship coordinator at UM, said the great thing
about the program is the experience you gain and the contacts you
make. “Often an internship is the first real-world experience
you’ll have,” she said.
“A lot of time internships don’t pay very well, but they’re
worth their weight in gold,” said Sarah Dorr, an intern at UM
Intercollegiate Athletics.
Dorr said her experience at UM will help her later in her career.
She is moving to Dillon, and because of her internship at UM, is looking
at working in the athletic department there.
Dorr isn’t the only one who found what she wanted through her
internship. Ather Bajwa, who graduated in 2002, works at S.G. Long,
a Montana-based broker dealer firm. He began as an intern for the
company, working for six months looking at different business portfolios
and researching and setting up charts on companies by industry. He
then began writing and presenting his own reports and was offered
a position at the company when his internship was complete.
Vina Little Owl is another UM student who had the opportunity to apply
skills she learned at UM to a real job. She interned at the Nike world
headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Little Owl was one of 150 interns
hired.
“It was the perfect avenue for me to grow professionally,”
Little Owl said. While at Nike, she worked in the marketing department
re-launching the message of Nike Play, a line for toddlers to young
teens. This involved working with foreign Nike consultants, as well
as those in the United States.
“I was just astounded by Nike’s diversity because I’m
from Montana, let alone Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, and at Nike
I could talk to someone in Japan or with a European accent,”
Little Owl said.
A.J. Doherty, a UM junior in communication studies who interned at
Disney, couldn’t agree more. “Working for the company,
I put higher expectations on myself,” he said.
Like Little Owl, Doherty landed the highly competitive assignment
as one of 4,000 students to obtain the internship out of more than
24,000 who applied. Doherty chose an internship with Disney because
of its Fortune 500 status and the networking opportunities it would
provide.
“(Disney) is such a high-performance place,” he said.
“There was always a conflict, always something to address everyday.”
Sounds like an average day in the workforce.
— By Brianne Burrowes
|
