Internship Program Opens Door to New Career Pathways

By Colleen DeLory | October 11, 2004

Host an Intern Interested in hosting an intern? Contact: Linda Olvera Equal Opportunity/Staff Affirmative Action (858) 534-6466   >> Career Connection pays 70 percent of the intern's salary for the time spent away from the home department, making it an attractive alternative for the sponsoring department. In addition, Career Connection staff help develop the sponsorship proposal, publicize the opportunity, screen applications and participate in the interview process.   Become an Intern Interested in becoming an intern? Check the internship Web page for details. To receive internship announcements, e-mail career@ucsd.edu or call (858) 822-0507 to request a registration form. >> Current internships include an opportunity at the Cross Cultural Center to gain experience in event planning and fund raising in support of the center's 10-year anniversary.

At one point in our lives, we all face it -- the perfect project, dream job or other exciting opportunity. You're a dedicated and accomplished individual looking to grow, but there's a catch: you don't have the necessary experience for the job, and you can't gain the experience you need in your current position

Dawn McDevitt found a solution to this career Catch-22 through a UCSD internship program administered by Career Connection. For six months, she split her time between her home department and Blink, the campus business portal. As a Blink intern, McDevitt learned how to write for the Web and basic HTML, Web navigation, design and usability skills -- an experience she draws on daily in her current position developing travel-oriented content and applications for UCSD Web sites, such as MyTravel.

"As an intern, you're stretching outside your comfort zone, applying newly learned skills, getting feedback, and learning about your strengths and things you can work on -- the potential benefit of doing all that is enormous," said McDevitt. "Then you bring those benefits into play to perform better in your work."

Career Connection is a career development program for staff offered through Equal Opportunity/Staff Affirmative Action within Human Resources. The program also assists staff in finding mentors, setting up informational interviews, and offers classes in resume preparation and interview skills.

"Career Connection is one of UCSD's resources for assisting employees with career planning and implementation by providing helpful tools and services," said Paula Doss, director of Equal Opportunity/Staff Affirmative Action. "Using the various components of Career Connection, we want to get people more involved in their own career development and success."

Doss and a steering committee modeled the internships after a highly successful program at UC Berkeley. Through initial funding from the UC Office of the President Career Development Program, they were able to design a program that has accommodated 36 participants since its inception in 1999. Doss gives kudos to home departments for encouraging staff to participate.

"Nearly half of the interns have remained in their home departments, displaying increased productivity and job satisfaction," said Doss. "The new skills, knowledge and abilities they develop can be immediately deployed, often resulting in promotions or reclassifications. It's a win-win situation for the department and employee."

Home departments are compensated for the employee's internship time, which can range from 25 percent to 50 percent in a different position for a period of three months to one year.

Jocille Flores found herself immersed in organizing a diversity summit as part of her internship at the Cross Cultural Center. Working with an 18-member committee appointed by the chancellor to research the diversity climate on campus, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and at the Medical Center, she gained a completely new perspective.

"It was an amazing confidence builder for me," said Flores. "I got to know so many more people on campus and was impressed with the support of my supervisor who encouraged my participation, the staff at the Cross Cultural Center and the committee members."

Currently working part time, Flores is preparing a portfolio to apply for a master's degree in visual arts. "My art focuses on diversity and social justice issues," said Flores. "The experience at the Cross Cultural Center helped inform my viewpoint and opened me up to new possibilities."

To divide their time between two jobs, interns must have good time management and organizational skills. They also undergo a rigorous screening and interview process. After being placed, interns meet regularly with a representative from Human Resources to review their goals and progress, and receive a stipend to attend training.

Interns come from diverse positions and have been placed throughout the university. In today's technology-driven world, the business portal internship has proven extremely popular, hosting 11 interns to date.

"The interns bring a fresh perspective and have given us some great ideas for new content that has proven to be some of the most popular information on the site," said Happy Aston, Blink's internship coordinator.

McDevitt was glad to be of assistance. "It's no exaggeration that the internship was one of the most enriching and positive work experiences for me," she said. "The training, mentoring and on-the-job experience I gained allowed me to contribute directly to innovative efforts to help UCSD staff with information resources and tools, and to accelerate growth in my career at UCSD."