University Daily Kansan, August 21, 1985
Page 15
Cafeteria remodeling
Students returning to Joseph R. Pearson Hall will notice a change in their hall. During the summer the cafeteria was remodeled and the elevators were rebuilt. Kurt Mielens, an employee of Stevenson Co., Topeka, worked last month on a new rack for trays in the cafeteria. The hall, usually kept open for students during the summer session, was closed for the project, which cost $140,000.
Internships help students find jobs
Experience preferred
By Jill Ovens Staff Reporter
DeNeen Brown, Wichita senior, had wondered what her stories about the demonstrations at the Kansas University Endowment Association possibly could mean to readers of the Wichita Eagle-Beacon, where she worked as an intern this summer.
Then a letter to the editor arrived from a man who had donated money to the Endowment Association and had been unaware of its policies. He thanked the newspaper for providing that information.
Students returning to KU this fall from internships gained valuable lessons in the working world that they could not have learned in the classroom. And the companies that hired them had an opportunity to evaluate some of the best talent that KU had to offer this summer.
"I realized that people everywhere are touched by what you write," Brown said recently. "This is the real world and you know your stories are going to be read by real people."
Internships, programs that offer practical working experience, are available in most of the professions, such as business, law, engineering, journalism, pharmacy, architecture, education and social welfare. Internships are not available in all of these programs during the summer, however.
Some professional schools play a more active role than others by selecting students to be considered for placement. For example, the School of Engineering supplies companies to the universities and the companies to screen candidates.
Bob Willets, assistant director of communications for Black & Veatch Engineering-Architects, Kansas City, Kan., said the company's internship program offered engineering students both a summer job and a
"It gives the students a good look at what the engineering profession is like," he said. "And it helps us in several ways. We often hire someone in the program. Or, even if they don't eventually come to work for us, they will go back to school and talk about their experience here and pass on information about us."
$375 scholarship for each semester they attended school while they were in the program.
The work students perform for the company is not just busy work, Willets said.
Deborah English, Kansas City, Kan., senior, worked for Black & Veatch in its civil engineering division this summer. She said she had written a community relations plan for a hazardous waste site and worked on a design for a landfill.
English said, "Because I'm only here for the summer, most of the work is not really very technical. But, I'm interested in getting into hazardous waste, so this has been good experience."
The work that Rick Gier, Leaward senior, did this summer for Black & Veatch might lead him onto an unexpected career path in computer technology. Gier is a mechanical engineering student also majoring in business administration.
"I've been working with three main programs all utilizing a particular computer software system." "I have learned the application of what I've learned in school."
"I like this application. I can see myself doing this in five years," he said.
Alicia Falcone, Overland Park senior, said her internship this summer at George K. Baum and Co., a Kansas City, Kan., brokerage firm, had reinforced what she had learned in the business school and would be helpful when she started looking for a
permanent job in the fall. She expects to graduate in December.
Jane Quigley, director of personnel at George K. Baum and Co., said the company hired interns studying economics or accounting for a number of reasons, although in their case, recruitment was not one of the most important reasons. The company rarely hires people who had internships with them, she said.
"It gives students a chance to learn and to get some first-hand experience that relates to their careers," she said. "And it gives us a chance to get a bright, eager, capable person who's usually willing to help out whenever we need them. It's that flexibility that makes them attractive to the company."
However, Dick King, assistant managing editor of the Topeka Capital-Journal, said journalism internships could be viewed as a recruitment tool that provides benefits to the student and to the newspaper.
"It gives us a chance to see what they can do," he said. "They can see if they like us and like the way we operate."
Dana Leibengood, associate dean of journalism, said internships were extremely important for journalism students in finding a job.
"They have got to get good samples of their work," he said. "While work on the Kansan, JKH-KFM or TV 30 is important, they have got to get an internship if at all possible."
Frederick Madaus, placement director for the School of Business, said any experience that related to a student's career would be beneficial when the time came to hunt for a permanent position.
"There's no question about it," Madaua said. "Career-related experience is a positive asset whether it
be a summer internship or part-time experience."
Steve Smith, a December 1983 graduate, spent the summer of 1983 working as an intern for Touche Ross & Co., a Kansas City, Mo., accounting company. After he graduated with an MBA, he was hired by the company and is now an associate consultant.
"It gave me exposure to the business environment," he said. "If you do a good job for the company and you like what you are doing, an internship can lead to a good job offer. It definitely helped me."
Maggie Cartar, placement director for the School of Law, said many large law firms regarded internships, or clerkships as they are called in the legal profession, as their prime means of recruiting.
"Many larger firms would like to do this kind of recruiting totally," she said, "although it doesn't always work out. For one thing, the student may decide a large firm is not the way he or she wants to go."
A law firm that hires interns not only gets the opportunity to evaluate students as potential employees. Tom Murray, an attorney with Barber, Emerson, Six, Springer and Zinn, 13th and Massachusetts streets, said two KU law students working for the firm this summer as law clerks did legal research for the firm.
"A student who spends the summer as a clerk is going to learn a tremendous amount that will assist that student in school," he said. "He or she can begin to pick up terms and concepts that can only be gained by hands-on experience. The same student is probably going to become an able practitioner more quickly than the law student who has never had any experience other than law school."
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