When you finally graduate and head out into the real world, one of the things that employers always seem to ask for is experience. However, when you’re in college and using up most of your time to study and graduate, how can you get any experience in your field?

Simple — Internships.

The Student Government Association has been working to help students find those valued internships. According to SGA President James Orr, SGA has been “looking at what all the colleges are doing in regards of internships. Then we want to compare it to other universities and see what we need to do to set UTM apart.”

One of the things that Orr believes is essential to this is to advertise internship programs, to let the students be aware of the fact that UTM has a number of internships available. “By doing this, it will help students get jobs and make the university more marketable,” said Orr.

Orr believes that the UTM Web site should have more information regarding internships, because not all of the students have access to internship information. “Other schools have more information on their websites regarding internships, and I believe we should, too,” says Orr.

Tomi Parrish, who is the Internship Coordinator for the Department of Communications, says that internships “are a wonderful opportunity to help students get the experience they need to compete in today’s job market. I don’t think their value can be overrated.”

While there are only two branches of the Communications program that require internships, Parrish says that the department will work to help any student that asks for help finding an internship in their field. “We also help students look for summer jobs within their major, even if it isn’t a ‘formal’ internship program.”

When a student comes in asking about an internship, Parrish says that she will first sit down with the student and find out what they want to gain from the internship and their future work goals. “Some students come in with a very clear definition of what they want, and that’s always a help.”

While Parrish doesn’t use a book to help find internships, she has no trouble in finding helping her students out. “We have contracts with businesses who will take our students, but sometimes a venue will open up, thanks to an internship a student has completed in the past. For example, we had a young lady who did an internship at Girl Scouts of Cumberland Valley last summer, so now that is a place that we can look at seriously when arranging an internship.”

Some of the business that the Communications Department has contracts with include Goodyear, the Obion County Public Library, Jackson/Madison County General Hospital, and Schmidt Relations in Nashville.

Of course, one thing that’s needed for an internship, or to get a job, are resumes. And for those students who aren’t quite sure if their resume is what it needs to be, SGA has offered some help: the resume drop-box.

“We’ve been working with Career Services to help students develop their resumes,” says Orr. “The resume drop-box is a place where students can drop off a description of a job or a graduate program they wish to try for. We will then send them to Career Services. This will be to help students get feedback on their resumes.”

Internships are something that Orr believes is critical. “The complete student needs the ability to gain leadership skills, get along with people, and get experience. Internships can do all of that.”