thePULSEThe Consortium Launches a New Website
By Annette Cinelli
Baseball, short skirts, blooming flowers, panicked college seniors ~ all of these are signs that the month of May is here. Freshmen and sophomores are thrilled to start their summer vacations, but many juniors and seniors are worrying about facing the real world. Well, there’s a way that you can spend some time enjoying summer while doing a little something for your professional future ~ you can apply for an internship!
Students at Clark University
Experience is what can set you apart from all of the other grads looking for an entry level position and the best way to get that experience is through an internship. Most colleges will even let you have one for class credits. Not only will this route give you a professional advantage, it can also help you figure out if the job you want is really right for you. Think of it as a test drive for your career.
So maybe you’re convinced that an internship is the way to go; now how do you find the right one? The Colleges of Worcester Consortium, Inc. has just made it a whole lot easier. They have launched an online internship database where you can look for an internship 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
According to Mark Bilotta (pictured right), the Chief Executive Officer of the Consortium, the database will serve to “…increase internship opportunities and engage more students in the community.” The assumption is that the more engaged students are in the community, the more likely they will be to stay and work here; this is based on the findings from a retention survey for the Central Massachusetts Regional Competitiveness Council that the Worcester Regional Research Bureau conduced in the spring of 2005. The consortium has been working on this online internship database for a while and they are very excited to see it up and running.
The website, powered by College Central Network, an established network for college job seekers, is very user friendly. Once you register, you can search for jobs based on your major, job target, and location. There’s also a box you can check if you only want to look for paid internships!
This database is sure to change the way internships in Worcester work. Before, if a business wanted an intern, they would have to contact 10-12 colleges, find the person there in charge of internships, post the description and then wait for a student. The student would have to make an appointment at career services, walk over, flip through the listings, and see if the type of company they were interested in has even posted a job at their school. It’s quite a cumbersome process! Mark Bilotta believes that with this new online database, “Employers will have an easier time because they only have to post the internship once.” Students will have it easy because they can look for an internship online in their pajamas at 2:00 on a Tuesday morning, or whenever is convenient for them.
The consortium is looking not only for large corporations to use this new database, but also “…small and medium sized companies that have maybe not thought of having an intern, but by having easy access to students, would at least try it.” This will increase the number of organizations that post internships, meaning that there will be more out there for the students of Worcester.
The online database is still in its early stages, but new businesses and students are registering every day. Visit www.cowc.org/ and click on the NEW! Internship database to register today.
