July 1, 2025 • 39 mins
Are you an employer curious about how to design an internship program?
Or perhaps you are a student interested in an internship in finance, budgeting, or accounting?
Internships and experiential learning are vital to student success and career satisfaction. Therefore, I thought it would be wise to explore the topic of internships.
In Part 2 of my 2-part series on South Dakota State University as an employer I talk with Kaci Richard. She is the Director of Finance and Budget oversees a very successful internship program here on campus. We get into the details of designing an internship program, how to define the scope of the internship and many other aspects to consider.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]Welcome to Career Connections. I'm your host, Kevin Folger. Are you an employer curious about how to design an internship program?
Or perhaps you are a student interested in an internship in finance, budgeting, or maybe accounting?
Internships and experiential learning are vital to student success and career satisfaction.
Therefore, I thought it would be wise to explore the topic of internships.
(00:29):
In part two of my two part series on South Dakota State University as an employer.
I talk with Cassie Richard. She is the director of Finance and Budget.
She oversees a very successful internship program here on campus.
In this episode, we get into the details of designing an internship program,
how to define the scope of an internship, and many other aspects to consider.
(00:59):
Hello, Casey. Thank you for joining me on Career Connections. I'm really excited to get into this discussion about internships with you.
Yes. Thanks for having me. Before we really start talking about specifically what an internship is and what an internship program can look like,
I think listeners would benefit just from, you know, learning a little bit about you.
Uh, so we provide a little bit of introduction, some background about your experience and how you got to where you are today.
(01:27):
Absolutely. So currently, I serve as the director for Finance and Budget at South Dakota State University.
I've been here at Sdsu almost 12 years now.
I started in our budget office as a budget analyst, uh, and had a lot of opportunities to grow in my career here at Sdsu Finance and Budget.
(01:49):
I served as a financial analyst, finance and budget coordinator, and now director of finance and Budget.
Previous to that, my educational experience.
I have an undergraduate degree in banking and financial services from Northern State University and a master's in Business Administration,
University of North. So our goal today is to really learn about specifics about what an internship program can look like.
(02:15):
And I know the program that you run is is pretty successful.
And, um, it's provide a lot of great experience for students.
But maybe we start big picture first and started talking about experiential learning
a little bit and kind of define what we think of as an internship specifically.
So our internship really was, uh, really came from a dream of mine and vice president whole bags way back,
(02:44):
uh, years ago, before either of us were in the roles we're in now.
Uh, and we thought, wouldn't it be great to have real life work experience opportunities for students?
I had had some fantastic opportunities myself as a student at, uh, two other institutions, and thought it would be wonderful to replicate that here.
(03:06):
So really, the the moment the opportunity came was, uh, and that call it post-Covid era hiring difficulties, um, vacant positions, turnover.
Um, and we realized we could really.
(03:27):
Create opportunities for our students as part of the, uh, the.
Strategic planning goal of the university is to look at ways to, you know, enhance our educational opportunities.
And we thought that was something we could provide in our office, but then also we could train our own.
We could grow students into professionals that might apply for and be successful in our positions across our teams in finance and budget.
(03:57):
Yeah, great. Yeah. I think it cannot be overstated.
You know, the importance of experiential learning and the impacts that internships have on student development.
Uh, I think the. As I've progressed through my career, I realize how sort of I kind of took it for granted with my my schooling being in music.
(04:18):
There are so many experiential components to that. Like, I knew every day that what I was doing was really feeding me and I enjoyed it.
And it wasn't hypothetical. It wasn't abstract. It was, uh, I had I was playing trombone several hours a day.
Um, and I it's been interesting to, to, uh, just learn more about disciplines.
As, you know, as my career has progressed, just how kind of unique that actually is.
(04:43):
And so I think anytime a program can, a university can support actual interns is really great because we can sort of model what we're talking about,
where we are seeking internships from employers.
Can you talk a little bit about? So there's, there's, there's benefits for the employer to have interns and you kind of tease at that a little bit.
(05:05):
But there's also benefits to students. Um. Let's talk a little bit more specifically about with the employers.
Like what what do you feel like is the is the primary benefit for the employer to have an internship program?
Yeah. And the fantastic benefit for us, uh, is the real.
(05:26):
Chance to bring on students and have them work in what we call its real world work.
This is work that our entry level positions would do if our interns weren't here.
So it helps to, um, alleviate some of the pressure on our full time staff.
(05:47):
It creates some really exciting professional development opportunities for those staff to train
students to think through their processes and how they're going to teach that to another person.
Um, it's relationship building. It's communication skills.
Um, so those are the really great benefits to the employer in the very immediate in turn, is here part of our team?
(06:11):
Um, but then over time, we've already hired, I believe, seven full time staff out of our internship program.
And this is only going to be the fourth year of our program.
So we're having a lot of success in recruiting our interns back into full time roles with the university.
And so in that way, it's also an elongated, says our interns.
(06:36):
When they apply for a job here, they have a pretty good idea of what that job might be like when they can work full time.
And our employers, you know, obviously we go through a, um, a thorough hiring process.
But when these former interns are in our pools, we're already pretty familiar with their skills, their abilities, you.
(07:01):
And so you're really kind of launching from, uh.
A place of already knowing kind of where you're at with a position.
So, uh, I think that's really been a huge benefit for us.
Yeah. For sure. How many interns do you have?
Sort of official interns? Lots. It fluctuates a little bit from year to year.
(07:24):
We do an evaluation every year before we start recruiting for our internship, just so that we know kind of what our target goal is.
I work with the leaders across finance and budget to determine what projects they're going to have, what work is going to be available.
Um, and then we kind of set our call on our soft goal.
(07:45):
Um, and so probably pickle has been around 4 to 5.
One summer did have as many as two. That, uh, was a busy, busy summer.
I think we'd kind of found our our comfort number is really kind of in the five ish,
you know, plus or minus a couple, uh, really where we're at with our need.
(08:08):
If we have maybe a few more vacancies on our team, we might consider adding 1 or 2 spots.
Or if we've, you know, recently filled quite a few positions, we might have 1 or 2 less.
Um, but yeah, the thing that I think it really provides is a bit of a cohort.
So we have students with the opportunity to work together to get to know each other a little bit,
(08:31):
to have other students going through a similar experience, even if they're assigned to different work areas.
We give them opportunities to get to know each other a little bit on kind of a personal level.
Um, we had interns become very close friends then and go on with those relationships as they graduate in and move on to other opportunities.
(08:53):
So it's been a really nice thing to see how they can kind of, um, you know, build that cohort together.
Yeah, that's really great. And, and a couple of things in there.
So if if employers are listening and they're trying to figure out if they want to do an internship program or not,
to start out, I think it's important to understand kind of it's an iterative process.
(09:13):
You know, every year might be a little bit different. And and you've over the years have kind of figured out what that comfort range is.
I imagine having that, you know, ten interns that one year was.
Quite a bit. That are pretty busy. Yeah.
And. Yeah. And in my experience with advising, um, experiential, you know, programs like, uh, pharmacy rotations, we found often that sometimes, uh,
(09:40):
it was easier for pharmacies to have two students or three students versus one student because,
because then students were able to collaborate on some of the projects. And it wasn't just a direct kind of one on one type of situation.
And so there is this there is kind of a some experimentation involved with with getting things going.
Well, I do think, well, we really found our success is having a pretty solid plan of what our interns are going to do,
(10:06):
and so having a good balance of what we'll call more daily work.
These are things that once they're trained, they can just be given to complete without a lot of oversight,
but then also trying to mix in some projects that are going to be more hands on.
Um, you know, you'll have a case where an intercom said, hey, I, you know, I'm looking for a project.
(10:27):
Well, that full time professional is busy was another priority and can't sort of stop to guide that intern.
You're really kind of wasting resources by not, um, having something that they can work on in the meantime.
Um, so really trying to be very thoughtful about that.
Or when, you know, a group agrees to take on some intern time that they really know they can fill that time in an impactful way.
(10:53):
Um, so it's a great experience for everyone. Yeah.
Sir, can you speak a little bit then about. How the interns.
It's not really like the benefit to the employer, but how the entrance of the interim program has,
uh, sort of changed your work with the other full time employees as well.
For sure. Um, I think you'll see it most clearly.
(11:16):
Uh, we had interns in our shared service centers,
and that really helps the other ones that are processing things like travel or accounts payable through our systems.
Some of the teams have their full time professionals.
Um, you know, their, their coding and maybe doing some of that more high level decision making,
(11:38):
but then they're able to pass on some of the more we'll call it data entry type.
Um, duties still requires, you know, training of thoughts and skill, but, um, maybe just not quite the same level.
And so that allows those full time people to be more efficient with their time.
Um, and it also allows us to provide a higher level of service to our faculty and to our departments,
(12:03):
because, you know, they're not waiting as long to have those things processed.
Uh, and so we're able to move through things. We.
Um, and so all along. It just, it really helps to sort of grow our ability to get things processed to our system.
Um, other ways in my knee that we have a research project we wish we had time to get to.
(12:28):
But we simply don't have time to dig in. But yeah, students are, uh, poised to be able to do a research project.
That's kind of the world they're in right now.
And so you can hand them a project and say, you know, please go help me research the price of this program at our competitor institutions,
(12:50):
and then we'll be able to analyze that data and determine if we're price right in the market,
you know, things like that, um, that take time and and energy that.
Might not always have available. When you know you're you're trying to get to daily tasks.
Yeah, that's really great. And. And that's a really.
(13:13):
Good benefit to the student to, uh, if they can.
It allows them to learn more about the work and the scope of the work.
Um, is there so much that they just don't know what they don't know?
And, um, just understanding the different layers of questions that.
You know, the business officer at a university who deals with, uh, that's it's really great experience.
(13:38):
I think that's something to that. You know, prior to starting an internship, we really talked a lot about was.
It doesn't really occur to people that you can work at a university.
Even today, when our recruiting staff go out to career fairs, um, people will say, oh, you know, I, uh, I'm not looking to go back to school.
(13:59):
And I'm like, no, no, we're hiring like, great. Um, work here type things.
Um, and so helping people recognize that this is a $350 million operation.
We need finance, we need accounting, we need, uh,
accounts payable and and all of those different finance pieces, grants, accounting, shared service centers, um.
(14:24):
Kind of giving them that moment to realize. Oh, of course, of course you could.
Right. University. Um, and then once they have that experience, realizing it's a pretty great place to work.
Uh. You know, I think also for our students, what has been really interesting for some of them,
(14:45):
it's really their first time working full time in a professional environment.
Now, this is the first time you're coming to an office. The first time you're working from 8 to 5.
You know, this is the first that. You're given some tasks with a little bit of autonomy.
Um, and so really giving them that opportunity to practice being a working professional,
(15:11):
uh, before they, you know, graduate and go into their first job with that.
What have been some challenges that you've had with students?
We all know that. You know, not every student is created equal. And, uh, I think a lot of times when we're.
Uh, try to design a program. We have this sort of high performing student in mind.
(15:32):
Um, so what kind of space do you build in for?
For mistakes. For growth? Um. And challenges.
Great question. I would say by and large, we have do really attract very high performing students.
Um, kind of the one roadblock we realized that we had maybe made a mistake.
(15:55):
Our first group we hired starting in the summer and start that full time.
Great experience. Um, but a couple of them, you know, graduated, moved on.
And so fall was coming and we thought, oh, we'll just hire, you know, some additional ones for fall.
And for our particular program that turned out to not be as successful.
(16:19):
I really think a big contributing factor there is when you start our type of work in the summer, you're working 40 hours a week.
You have a chance to learn it really in-depth. But when you start part time, maybe 10 to 20 hours a week, closer to ten during the school year.
Other priorities. It's just very hard to learn all that.
(16:44):
We would need you to learn to be successful in that compressed timetable.
And especially it might be, well, I have two hours on Monday and then maybe three hours on Wednesday.
And I think the way that our brains learn and absorb information for our particular program, that does turn out to not be successful.
So that was one of our big lessons learned, is we set up our class to start in summer, and we're very thoughtful about.
(17:13):
Hoping that our students can continue on during the school year. That's part of our questions we ask, because if they have that possibility.
Um, not that that completely, you know, means you won't get an opportunity if you can't.
But but it's what we're hoping to do, especially if we can keep you on for a couple of years.
Um. And really not trying to start students in the middle of a semester and and not be set up for success from the beginning.
(17:41):
Um. And I think we've really honed in on what we're looking for in our internship.
We run our recruitment very similar to, I would say, how we recruit our entry level, you know, budget analyst type positions on our team.
Yeah, very same interview questions, some of the very same processes.
(18:06):
To really try and select people who are going to be successful.
That's best for them and us for us.
Yeah, agree that that's a really important thing to think about is like your your season or your work and and it might not even be the,
the student necessarily the caliber of the student. But it's like when you bring them in and how much you can onboard with them.
(18:26):
Um, understanding your capacity is really important. It's not.
And it happens to work out well for us that our fiscal year ends in June and begins in July.
Or is easy? Um, you know, especially in our office, we have students that are helping with, you know, summer faculty contracts.
Well, that's only work that we do in the summer. And so it's, uh,
(18:49):
a good task we can assign to students and know our AP office has things like closing things out for the fiscal year that the students can help with,
and they can see how that translates to financial statements.
And, um, so, yes, I don't know that all companies would have the same type of seasonality.
You know, for some they say, well, summers are quiet time and interim might be bored during the summer, but,
(19:13):
you know, during the spring tax season and we have lots of work, you know, so it really depends who you are.
But for us, we well, that we bring them on during a time the.
They can really have an intensive experience.
Let's, let's imagine sort of a hypothetical employer who's listening to this, this episode of is curious about an internship program.
(19:36):
Here's a lot of buzz about having interns and thinks that, you know what?
Maybe I want to I want to start hiring interns. Um, what are some.
Sort of decision tree type questions you you feel like they should answer for themselves before they they really do that.
Yeah. Um great question. So I would first make sure they have a solid plan of what work that intern's going to do.
(20:06):
And make sure they have at least one, if not multiple persons who can really guide and oversee that work.
Uh, there's nothing worse than someone who's just there.
They don't have anything to do. They're sort of bored or frustrated.
Um, so you want a really good plan? Um.
(20:30):
And I would say. Start small if you can.
Um, or if you want to take on 1 or 2 and then that's a successful experience.
You can expand from there. Um.
I think for us, you know, we we tried to really look at the whole picture, um,
(20:57):
what we were going to apply to the student, what the student was going to provide to us.
Um, so I don't think we've talked about this yet. We set up a summer professional development series where leaders from across finance
and budget put together presentations that are designed not only for our interns,
but also for some of our maybe newer additions to our team.
(21:18):
Um, whether that be, um, early career professionals or just people who are recently transitioned to Sdsu.
And we really talk through what the career trajectory might have been like.
Um, different roles a person might have had or kind of stepping stones.
They hope to get to where they are going through a project that they do,
(21:40):
a report that they created, or lead us in a, um, skill building exercise or something like that.
And so trying to kind of add in some of those touch points, um, really to make it a fulfilling experience.
Um, I would think about, hey, um, I personally, um, am pretty passionate that all internships should be paid internships on the personal opinions.
(22:09):
Um, but we do pay our interns, um, and we try to pay them, um, you know, a fair wage, understanding they could be working other places.
And so we want to attract them to work for us.
Trying to just create a few opportunities to give them a little chance to show you what they can do.
(22:31):
Uh, you know, some projects with some guide rails, but maybe a little bit of creative freedom.
Um, I think those are the kind of things that get people really excited about work.
Oh, and physical space. Uh. Sometimes that's the last thing we think of.
So yeah, we'll bring on internet ads. You know, where are they going to be?
What folks are they going to work closely with? Um, is their equipment set up some of that just kind of logistics of just like bringing on a new hire.
(23:00):
You've got to have all of these pieces in place in order to get them up and running pretty quickly when they start.
Yeah. Um, training, of course.
What is our training going to look like? Um, what is their first few days or weeks?
Um, and we also I meet individually with each of the interns,
(23:22):
typically at least a couple of times during the summer experience and then usually once a semester, kind of after that.
Just how are things going? What do you like?
What do you maybe not your favorite parts of the internship?
Do you have any advice on how we could change it to improve the experience for, um, your future students?
Uh, so that's good to, you know, take that feedback and embed it back into your program to really experience for everyone.
(23:50):
And we're asking the same questions of our project leaders to know, yeah.
How are your students doing? Do you you know.
Have any changes you'd like to me? Uh.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a really great checklist of things to think about.
I, I also, um, encourage folks to understand that, uh, the true internship, you're jumping into the world of education.
(24:17):
It's not necessarily about trying to fill a need for your company of, uh,
there's some tasks that people don't want to do that I need to find somebody to do.
And this would be a cheaper way for me to get it done. You know, it's more of an education piece than than that.
Yeah. I share your your opinion about internships should be paid and that's at the
(24:37):
national conversation shifted quite a bit over the last few years about that.
And there's a strong sort of push to to make sure internships are paid.
Internships at this point make sense for a lot of reasons.
And so I'm not shy about saying that either. So how does your your internship actually work?
Can you just kind of walk us? Walk us through that? Great question.
(25:01):
So each of our interns that's come through our program has had what I would call a totally unique experience.
Before we even start hiring students. We've done kind of our analysis of what all work do we have?
And as I bring on interns, I'm really trying to look at their skills, their abilities, their aptitude and the needs and match those up.
(25:23):
And ideally, we're trying to give each intern an experience of at least two different areas under our brella.
Um, and so it might look like an intern has, you know,
half of their assigned work is going to be with the office and budget, and half might be grants and contracts.
Or, uh, a student might be working with our, uh, academic shared service center and, um, working with a county.
(25:54):
So really trying to give people that exposure to a few different areas of work so that as they're going into their career,
they have experience and exposure to not just one specific type of work, but maybe a few different types.
Uh, all within finance, of course, but. Kind of giving that broad umbrella.
(26:17):
And as we have students that are probably moving closer to graduation, or we've even actually had a few post-grad interns on our team.
We oftentimes will kind of specialize those folks as well.
So we know you really have a strong interest in.
What agriculture will. You might work specifically with our agriculture shared service center, or we know you have a focus in accounting,
(26:41):
and you might work specifically with our accounts payable and purchasing team,
because that's where we need our accounting help or something like that.
So trying to really be thoughtful about how we line those things up for our students, um,
and thinking about the teams that they're going to work with and how personalities might mesh together is all part of our.
(27:04):
Yeah, that's really great.
And I like the focus of of trying to get students, um, exposure to different things and things that they're, they're interested in to.
As you know, students come into our office, so we're helping them look for different jobs, uh, full time jobs out there.
Uh, job descriptions often are, you know, a full page, you know, in terms of job duties, you're helping with this and leading this project.
(27:28):
And it's just these different aspects of of the one sort of umbrella topic.
So it's important for them to be able to get some, some really experience in a lot of those different, different areas.
So what do you feel like? We've talked a lot about benefits and that's very, very clear.
Uh, what are some of the limitations you felt with, uh, some of the, uh, working with interns?
(27:54):
I think. Recognizing sometimes that they are still students.
Um, and they're maybe in more of a mode of.
You know, professor gives assignments. I complete assignments, kind of wait for my next assignment type.
Um, you know, that's just kind of where they're at in life.
(28:17):
Oh, yeah. And so. Really understanding that.
That's kind of. Most of the time how they're going to come into your internship.
And I'm looking for opportunities to help them grow as professionals.
Um, I think I mentioned sometimes this is people's very first opportunity to work in a professional environment.
(28:41):
So it's been conversations that you need to have that you might not expect to have.
Talking about expectations for when we arrive at work,
expectations or if we're going to be sick or late, how we communicate with our supervisor in our teams.
Um, some of those types of things that you really are teaching people, maybe for the first time.
(29:06):
Yeah. So. That's kind of part of what I think is the responsibility of, uh, of, uh, supervisor.
Um, I think it's things that people and I might not always expect to be doing.
Um, I also think sometimes folks say, well, this is, you know, the digital generation,
they must know everything there is to know about Excel, for example.
(29:28):
Well, really, we shouldn't assume they have skills just because, um, you know, they're they're very, um.
Technology savvy. Um, certainly we notice our students take up those skills very quickly.
Um, but don't necessarily assume that they have them just because, um, you know, of a certain age or place in their education.
(29:57):
Yeah, that's that's really great. It's such an important thing to think about.
And, and this idea of, of holding space with some guardrails, you know, finding that balance of, uh, autonomy for the insurance to,
to really kind of stretch your legs and learn some things and projects, but understand that they are students.
Um, I know some of the conversations that I've had previously with.
(30:19):
With folks that work with students, uh, especially in the pharmacy curriculum, when the clerkships were, uh, graded and evaluated to a certain extent.
So students were kind of worried about what grade they were getting and not necessarily, um.
Uh, solely focused on, you know, the patient outcomes.
And, uh, so. There is a time there where students really need to, uh, adjust their lens at.
(30:44):
And we help them with that. I think two student employees.
Um, this student is first in the summer.
Most often of our students are taking credit. It's really just for our internship.
They may take classes or they're, um, really flipping into that all in spring semester.
We we do really adjust our expectations for students.
(31:08):
We tell them we expect that they're focused on their studies.
We really limit the amount of time that they can work with our teens to 20 hours or less.
And we let them know up front. You know, mid-terms, finals, those types of things.
(31:28):
We expect not to see what's much. We expect to see less hours, you know, when you're focusing on those things.
And that's fine. We just get really well about what availability is.
Um, another piece of advice for employers.
If you're thinking about taking on interns, you got to be really flexible during the school year with your hours.
(31:50):
And we're lucky our office that are open ag vibe. It doesn't matter if a student comes, you know, at ten or at two.
Our staff are here. We just need to know when they'll be here to plan work for them.
But we can kind of let students come and go between classes or anything like that.
Um, not all employers have that ability to be that flexible, but I think in general, if you're trying to take on students,
(32:16):
you've got to know they may have a required course at, you know,
10:00 right in the middle of the morning, you know, make come for an hour or two before or after.
But they've got to be there at that time, and that's going to be the priority.
It has to be the priority.
Um, so something to really plan around if you're planning an internship especially, I would say, during the fall and spring semester.
(32:41):
Okay. See? Thanks so much for sharing details about your internship program.
I. I so appreciate how, um, intentional you all are with your your planning.
I think the sometimes that planning piece can sound intimidating,
but I think it makes the work so much easier if you do a lot of that planning on the front end, what would you agree with that?
(33:01):
Very much, yes. Um, and I think it it makes it easier for everybody can be a little overwhelming to say,
oh my goodness, I'm going to bring on five whole people all at once.
Uh. Um, and so really having a good plan and having a team that's helping with that.
So it's not one person finding work for all of those people to do.
(33:24):
It's a team of folks helping to, you know, guide that work, oversee that work.
I think that really knows. And so, yeah, that's a huge component to have buy in with other staff that can can really hold this program as a group.
Yeah. That's a very, very important component of this.
(33:44):
Uh, for sure.
Well, before we wrap, are there any other key details that you were kind of hoping to share about the intern program or internships in general?
I mean, one thing, um, we really also, I think to get our really successful classes, we've spent a lot of energy on the front end recruiting.
(34:08):
So we are at career fairs and we are building a contact list of students.
You know, they can give us their name, give us their emails so that when we are going to be hosting our internship,
we're sending the flier directly to them saying, hey, it's ready to apply.
We've had it posted on things like handshake. We've had really good relationships with, um, the internship folks over in the school.
(34:36):
And so they're sharing our information with students.
Uh, occasionally we end up in front of a classroom.
So really trying to build our awareness for our students and what our internship is also helps us to attract really high quality students.
Um, that makes it very hard to choose. Um, of course.
(35:00):
Um, but I think, too, if you're looking to get into an internship, you're looking for really high quality students.
Sdsu has no shortage of high quality students, taking sure that you're, um, putting yourself out there in a way that's really attractive to that.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Thanks. I think it's just engaging in the process.
(35:21):
Right. And just trying to find who the helpers are in this space.
And so, um, my office and folks at the school, um.
Uh, yeah. All sorts of interested parties on campus are trying to help each other.
It would probably be good. Before we wrap the episode to delineate the difference and discuss the idea that some internships can be for credit.
(35:45):
Uh, some internships might just be, uh, it's the paid internship without without credit.
How does that work with with your program? And you know, what are some of the the differences there?
So we have had students take the internship for credit and not credit those two students.
Their work looks identical. They have the exact same experience from our side.
(36:11):
What really makes the difference is that they are working with the, uh,
internship coordinator in their academic college to ensure that our internship meets the academic requirements.
Uh, it's not a heavy lift for the employer.
Um, maybe things like. They need a brief job description.
(36:32):
They need to know who is overseeing the work, who the supervisors are.
Just some very basic things that most attire employers are going to be doing anyway.
Um, and then a lot of the work is really on the side of the student.
Uh, they may be writing a paper for their academic department a couple of times throughout the experience.
(36:53):
They may be doing, um, like a presentation on their experience.
Um, so whatever it is that their internship coordinator has kind of determined is required for them to earn those academic credits.
I believe they can still register, um, for 1 to 3 credits.
And that really comes down to how many hours they're working. Um, so they do need to put in those work hours.
(37:18):
Again, in our experience, they're probably working more than the required hours and evening.
Um, so those are kind of the the basic things that differentiate the for credit and not for credit options.
But yes, as I said, we provide identical experiences for students whichever way they choose to take college.
(37:39):
Yeah. Good deal. Yeah. And and the folks that are listening, if you're interested in, in trying to pursue that,
um, there's some of those questions about a four quarter internship. I, you know, feel free to contact me.
I'm in touch with those all those coordinators and so we can get you in touch with the right people to make sure you,
uh, complete the right paperwork and answer the questions and stuff. So, um.
(38:02):
Yeah. Good. I'm glad.
Glad we discussed that, that little piece, because sometimes that can be a, uh, a big factor in terms of what the internship can look like.
We certainly have programs on our campus that, um, encourage or or occasionally even require internship experience for students.
And so they may be looking for an experience that can fit that need as they're working towards their graduation.
(38:28):
Casey, thank you so much for joining me on Career Connections that we were able to discuss some details about your program and internships generally.
I hope, listeners, I hope you found this, this valuable.
But Cassie, I want to thank you for your time and really appreciate you you connecting with me today.
Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Career Connections.
(38:52):
Please follow our podcast to hear our thoughts on other related topics and for topics,
suggestions or questions, you may contact me at Kevin Dot Fullerton at Ste data edu.
And for more information about my office, please go to careers dot at the state that Edu.
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]Welcome to Career Connections. I'm your host, Kevin Folger. Are you an employer curious about how to design an internship program?
Or perhaps you are a student interested in an internship in finance, budgeting, or maybe accounting?
Internships and experiential learning are vital to student success and career satisfaction.
Therefore, I thought it would be wise to explore the topic of internships.
(00:29):
In part two of my two part series on South Dakota State University as an employer.
I talk with Cassie Richard. She is the director of Finance and Budget.
She oversees a very successful internship program here on campus.
In this episode, we get into the details of designing an internship program,
how to define the scope of an internship, and many other aspects to consider.
(00:59):
Hello, Casey. Thank you for joining me on Career Connections. I'm really excited to get into this discussion about internships with you.
Yes. Thanks for having me. Before we really start talking about specifically what an internship is and what an internship program can look like,
I think listeners would benefit just from, you know, learning a little bit about you.
Uh, so we provide a little bit of introduction, some background about your experience and how you got to where you are today.
(01:27):
Absolutely. So currently, I serve as the director for Finance and Budget at South Dakota State University.
I've been here at Sdsu almost 12 years now.
I started in our budget office as a budget analyst, uh, and had a lot of opportunities to grow in my career here at Sdsu Finance and Budget.
(01:49):
I served as a financial analyst, finance and budget coordinator, and now director of finance and Budget.
Previous to that, my educational experience.
I have an undergraduate degree in banking and financial services from Northern State University and a master's in Business Administration,
University of North. So our goal today is to really learn about specifics about what an internship program can look like.
(02:15):
And I know the program that you run is is pretty successful.
And, um, it's provide a lot of great experience for students.
But maybe we start big picture first and started talking about experiential learning
a little bit and kind of define what we think of as an internship specifically.
So our internship really was, uh, really came from a dream of mine and vice president whole bags way back,
(02:44):
uh, years ago, before either of us were in the roles we're in now.
Uh, and we thought, wouldn't it be great to have real life work experience opportunities for students?
I had had some fantastic opportunities myself as a student at, uh, two other institutions, and thought it would be wonderful to replicate that here.
(03:06):
So really, the the moment the opportunity came was, uh, and that call it post-Covid era hiring difficulties, um, vacant positions, turnover.
Um, and we realized we could really.
(03:27):
Create opportunities for our students as part of the, uh, the.
Strategic planning goal of the university is to look at ways to, you know, enhance our educational opportunities.
And we thought that was something we could provide in our office, but then also we could train our own.
We could grow students into professionals that might apply for and be successful in our positions across our teams in finance and budget.
(03:57):
Yeah, great. Yeah. I think it cannot be overstated.
You know, the importance of experiential learning and the impacts that internships have on student development.
Uh, I think the. As I've progressed through my career, I realize how sort of I kind of took it for granted with my my schooling being in music.
(04:18):
There are so many experiential components to that. Like, I knew every day that what I was doing was really feeding me and I enjoyed it.
And it wasn't hypothetical. It wasn't abstract. It was, uh, I had I was playing trombone several hours a day.
Um, and I it's been interesting to, to, uh, just learn more about disciplines.
As, you know, as my career has progressed, just how kind of unique that actually is.
(04:43):
And so I think anytime a program can, a university can support actual interns is really great because we can sort of model what we're talking about,
where we are seeking internships from employers.
Can you talk a little bit about? So there's, there's, there's benefits for the employer to have interns and you kind of tease at that a little bit.
(05:05):
But there's also benefits to students. Um. Let's talk a little bit more specifically about with the employers.
Like what what do you feel like is the is the primary benefit for the employer to have an internship program?
Yeah. And the fantastic benefit for us, uh, is the real.
(05:26):
Chance to bring on students and have them work in what we call its real world work.
This is work that our entry level positions would do if our interns weren't here.
So it helps to, um, alleviate some of the pressure on our full time staff.
(05:47):
It creates some really exciting professional development opportunities for those staff to train
students to think through their processes and how they're going to teach that to another person.
Um, it's relationship building. It's communication skills.
Um, so those are the really great benefits to the employer in the very immediate in turn, is here part of our team?
(06:11):
Um, but then over time, we've already hired, I believe, seven full time staff out of our internship program.
And this is only going to be the fourth year of our program.
So we're having a lot of success in recruiting our interns back into full time roles with the university.
And so in that way, it's also an elongated, says our interns.
(06:36):
When they apply for a job here, they have a pretty good idea of what that job might be like when they can work full time.
And our employers, you know, obviously we go through a, um, a thorough hiring process.
But when these former interns are in our pools, we're already pretty familiar with their skills, their abilities, you.
(07:01):
And so you're really kind of launching from, uh.
A place of already knowing kind of where you're at with a position.
So, uh, I think that's really been a huge benefit for us.
Yeah. For sure. How many interns do you have?
Sort of official interns? Lots. It fluctuates a little bit from year to year.
(07:24):
We do an evaluation every year before we start recruiting for our internship, just so that we know kind of what our target goal is.
I work with the leaders across finance and budget to determine what projects they're going to have, what work is going to be available.
Um, and then we kind of set our call on our soft goal.
(07:45):
Um, and so probably pickle has been around 4 to 5.
One summer did have as many as two. That, uh, was a busy, busy summer.
I think we'd kind of found our our comfort number is really kind of in the five ish,
you know, plus or minus a couple, uh, really where we're at with our need.
(08:08):
If we have maybe a few more vacancies on our team, we might consider adding 1 or 2 spots.
Or if we've, you know, recently filled quite a few positions, we might have 1 or 2 less.
Um, but yeah, the thing that I think it really provides is a bit of a cohort.
So we have students with the opportunity to work together to get to know each other a little bit,
(08:31):
to have other students going through a similar experience, even if they're assigned to different work areas.
We give them opportunities to get to know each other a little bit on kind of a personal level.
Um, we had interns become very close friends then and go on with those relationships as they graduate in and move on to other opportunities.
(08:53):
So it's been a really nice thing to see how they can kind of, um, you know, build that cohort together.
Yeah, that's really great. And, and a couple of things in there.
So if if employers are listening and they're trying to figure out if they want to do an internship program or not,
to start out, I think it's important to understand kind of it's an iterative process.
(09:13):
You know, every year might be a little bit different. And and you've over the years have kind of figured out what that comfort range is.
I imagine having that, you know, ten interns that one year was.
Quite a bit. That are pretty busy. Yeah.
And. Yeah. And in my experience with advising, um, experiential, you know, programs like, uh, pharmacy rotations, we found often that sometimes, uh,
(09:40):
it was easier for pharmacies to have two students or three students versus one student because,
because then students were able to collaborate on some of the projects. And it wasn't just a direct kind of one on one type of situation.
And so there is this there is kind of a some experimentation involved with with getting things going.
Well, I do think, well, we really found our success is having a pretty solid plan of what our interns are going to do,
(10:06):
and so having a good balance of what we'll call more daily work.
These are things that once they're trained, they can just be given to complete without a lot of oversight,
but then also trying to mix in some projects that are going to be more hands on.
Um, you know, you'll have a case where an intercom said, hey, I, you know, I'm looking for a project.
(10:27):
Well, that full time professional is busy was another priority and can't sort of stop to guide that intern.
You're really kind of wasting resources by not, um, having something that they can work on in the meantime.
Um, so really trying to be very thoughtful about that.
Or when, you know, a group agrees to take on some intern time that they really know they can fill that time in an impactful way.
(10:53):
Um, so it's a great experience for everyone. Yeah.
Sir, can you speak a little bit then about. How the interns.
It's not really like the benefit to the employer, but how the entrance of the interim program has,
uh, sort of changed your work with the other full time employees as well.
For sure. Um, I think you'll see it most clearly.
(11:16):
Uh, we had interns in our shared service centers,
and that really helps the other ones that are processing things like travel or accounts payable through our systems.
Some of the teams have their full time professionals.
Um, you know, their, their coding and maybe doing some of that more high level decision making,
(11:38):
but then they're able to pass on some of the more we'll call it data entry type.
Um, duties still requires, you know, training of thoughts and skill, but, um, maybe just not quite the same level.
And so that allows those full time people to be more efficient with their time.
Um, and it also allows us to provide a higher level of service to our faculty and to our departments,
(12:03):
because, you know, they're not waiting as long to have those things processed.
Uh, and so we're able to move through things. We.
Um, and so all along. It just, it really helps to sort of grow our ability to get things processed to our system.
Um, other ways in my knee that we have a research project we wish we had time to get to.
(12:28):
But we simply don't have time to dig in. But yeah, students are, uh, poised to be able to do a research project.
That's kind of the world they're in right now.
And so you can hand them a project and say, you know, please go help me research the price of this program at our competitor institutions,
(12:50):
and then we'll be able to analyze that data and determine if we're price right in the market,
you know, things like that, um, that take time and and energy that.
Might not always have available. When you know you're you're trying to get to daily tasks.
Yeah, that's really great. And. And that's a really.
(13:13):
Good benefit to the student to, uh, if they can.
It allows them to learn more about the work and the scope of the work.
Um, is there so much that they just don't know what they don't know?
And, um, just understanding the different layers of questions that.
You know, the business officer at a university who deals with, uh, that's it's really great experience.
(13:38):
I think that's something to that. You know, prior to starting an internship, we really talked a lot about was.
It doesn't really occur to people that you can work at a university.
Even today, when our recruiting staff go out to career fairs, um, people will say, oh, you know, I, uh, I'm not looking to go back to school.
(13:59):
And I'm like, no, no, we're hiring like, great. Um, work here type things.
Um, and so helping people recognize that this is a $350 million operation.
We need finance, we need accounting, we need, uh,
accounts payable and and all of those different finance pieces, grants, accounting, shared service centers, um.
(14:24):
Kind of giving them that moment to realize. Oh, of course, of course you could.
Right. University. Um, and then once they have that experience, realizing it's a pretty great place to work.
Uh. You know, I think also for our students, what has been really interesting for some of them,
(14:45):
it's really their first time working full time in a professional environment.
Now, this is the first time you're coming to an office. The first time you're working from 8 to 5.
You know, this is the first that. You're given some tasks with a little bit of autonomy.
Um, and so really giving them that opportunity to practice being a working professional,
(15:11):
uh, before they, you know, graduate and go into their first job with that.
What have been some challenges that you've had with students?
We all know that. You know, not every student is created equal. And, uh, I think a lot of times when we're.
Uh, try to design a program. We have this sort of high performing student in mind.
(15:32):
Um, so what kind of space do you build in for?
For mistakes. For growth? Um. And challenges.
Great question. I would say by and large, we have do really attract very high performing students.
Um, kind of the one roadblock we realized that we had maybe made a mistake.
(15:55):
Our first group we hired starting in the summer and start that full time.
Great experience. Um, but a couple of them, you know, graduated, moved on.
And so fall was coming and we thought, oh, we'll just hire, you know, some additional ones for fall.
And for our particular program that turned out to not be as successful.
(16:19):
I really think a big contributing factor there is when you start our type of work in the summer, you're working 40 hours a week.
You have a chance to learn it really in-depth. But when you start part time, maybe 10 to 20 hours a week, closer to ten during the school year.
Other priorities. It's just very hard to learn all that.
(16:44):
We would need you to learn to be successful in that compressed timetable.
And especially it might be, well, I have two hours on Monday and then maybe three hours on Wednesday.
And I think the way that our brains learn and absorb information for our particular program, that does turn out to not be successful.
So that was one of our big lessons learned, is we set up our class to start in summer, and we're very thoughtful about.
(17:13):
Hoping that our students can continue on during the school year. That's part of our questions we ask, because if they have that possibility.
Um, not that that completely, you know, means you won't get an opportunity if you can't.
But but it's what we're hoping to do, especially if we can keep you on for a couple of years.
Um. And really not trying to start students in the middle of a semester and and not be set up for success from the beginning.
(17:41):
Um. And I think we've really honed in on what we're looking for in our internship.
We run our recruitment very similar to, I would say, how we recruit our entry level, you know, budget analyst type positions on our team.
Yeah, very same interview questions, some of the very same processes.
(18:06):
To really try and select people who are going to be successful.
That's best for them and us for us.
Yeah, agree that that's a really important thing to think about is like your your season or your work and and it might not even be the,
the student necessarily the caliber of the student. But it's like when you bring them in and how much you can onboard with them.
(18:26):
Um, understanding your capacity is really important. It's not.
And it happens to work out well for us that our fiscal year ends in June and begins in July.
Or is easy? Um, you know, especially in our office, we have students that are helping with, you know, summer faculty contracts.
Well, that's only work that we do in the summer. And so it's, uh,
(18:49):
a good task we can assign to students and know our AP office has things like closing things out for the fiscal year that the students can help with,
and they can see how that translates to financial statements.
And, um, so, yes, I don't know that all companies would have the same type of seasonality.
You know, for some they say, well, summers are quiet time and interim might be bored during the summer, but,
(19:13):
you know, during the spring tax season and we have lots of work, you know, so it really depends who you are.
But for us, we well, that we bring them on during a time the.
They can really have an intensive experience.
Let's, let's imagine sort of a hypothetical employer who's listening to this, this episode of is curious about an internship program.
(19:36):
Here's a lot of buzz about having interns and thinks that, you know what?
Maybe I want to I want to start hiring interns. Um, what are some.
Sort of decision tree type questions you you feel like they should answer for themselves before they they really do that.
Yeah. Um great question. So I would first make sure they have a solid plan of what work that intern's going to do.
(20:06):
And make sure they have at least one, if not multiple persons who can really guide and oversee that work.
Uh, there's nothing worse than someone who's just there.
They don't have anything to do. They're sort of bored or frustrated.
Um, so you want a really good plan? Um.
(20:30):
And I would say. Start small if you can.
Um, or if you want to take on 1 or 2 and then that's a successful experience.
You can expand from there. Um.
I think for us, you know, we we tried to really look at the whole picture, um,
(20:57):
what we were going to apply to the student, what the student was going to provide to us.
Um, so I don't think we've talked about this yet. We set up a summer professional development series where leaders from across finance
and budget put together presentations that are designed not only for our interns,
but also for some of our maybe newer additions to our team.
(21:18):
Um, whether that be, um, early career professionals or just people who are recently transitioned to Sdsu.
And we really talk through what the career trajectory might have been like.
Um, different roles a person might have had or kind of stepping stones.
They hope to get to where they are going through a project that they do,
(21:40):
a report that they created, or lead us in a, um, skill building exercise or something like that.
And so trying to kind of add in some of those touch points, um, really to make it a fulfilling experience.
Um, I would think about, hey, um, I personally, um, am pretty passionate that all internships should be paid internships on the personal opinions.
(22:09):
Um, but we do pay our interns, um, and we try to pay them, um, you know, a fair wage, understanding they could be working other places.
And so we want to attract them to work for us.
Trying to just create a few opportunities to give them a little chance to show you what they can do.
(22:31):
Uh, you know, some projects with some guide rails, but maybe a little bit of creative freedom.
Um, I think those are the kind of things that get people really excited about work.
Oh, and physical space. Uh. Sometimes that's the last thing we think of.
So yeah, we'll bring on internet ads. You know, where are they going to be?
What folks are they going to work closely with? Um, is their equipment set up some of that just kind of logistics of just like bringing on a new hire.
(23:00):
You've got to have all of these pieces in place in order to get them up and running pretty quickly when they start.
Yeah. Um, training, of course.
What is our training going to look like? Um, what is their first few days or weeks?
Um, and we also I meet individually with each of the interns,
(23:22):
typically at least a couple of times during the summer experience and then usually once a semester, kind of after that.
Just how are things going? What do you like?
What do you maybe not your favorite parts of the internship?
Do you have any advice on how we could change it to improve the experience for, um, your future students?
Uh, so that's good to, you know, take that feedback and embed it back into your program to really experience for everyone.
(23:50):
And we're asking the same questions of our project leaders to know, yeah.
How are your students doing? Do you you know.
Have any changes you'd like to me? Uh.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a really great checklist of things to think about.
I, I also, um, encourage folks to understand that, uh, the true internship, you're jumping into the world of education.
(24:17):
It's not necessarily about trying to fill a need for your company of, uh,
there's some tasks that people don't want to do that I need to find somebody to do.
And this would be a cheaper way for me to get it done. You know, it's more of an education piece than than that.
Yeah. I share your your opinion about internships should be paid and that's at the
(24:37):
national conversation shifted quite a bit over the last few years about that.
And there's a strong sort of push to to make sure internships are paid.
Internships at this point make sense for a lot of reasons.
And so I'm not shy about saying that either. So how does your your internship actually work?
Can you just kind of walk us? Walk us through that? Great question.
(25:01):
So each of our interns that's come through our program has had what I would call a totally unique experience.
Before we even start hiring students. We've done kind of our analysis of what all work do we have?
And as I bring on interns, I'm really trying to look at their skills, their abilities, their aptitude and the needs and match those up.
(25:23):
And ideally, we're trying to give each intern an experience of at least two different areas under our brella.
Um, and so it might look like an intern has, you know,
half of their assigned work is going to be with the office and budget, and half might be grants and contracts.
Or, uh, a student might be working with our, uh, academic shared service center and, um, working with a county.
(25:54):
So really trying to give people that exposure to a few different areas of work so that as they're going into their career,
they have experience and exposure to not just one specific type of work, but maybe a few different types.
Uh, all within finance, of course, but. Kind of giving that broad umbrella.
(26:17):
And as we have students that are probably moving closer to graduation, or we've even actually had a few post-grad interns on our team.
We oftentimes will kind of specialize those folks as well.
So we know you really have a strong interest in.
What agriculture will. You might work specifically with our agriculture shared service center, or we know you have a focus in accounting,
(26:41):
and you might work specifically with our accounts payable and purchasing team,
because that's where we need our accounting help or something like that.
So trying to really be thoughtful about how we line those things up for our students, um,
and thinking about the teams that they're going to work with and how personalities might mesh together is all part of our.
(27:04):
Yeah, that's really great.
And I like the focus of of trying to get students, um, exposure to different things and things that they're, they're interested in to.
As you know, students come into our office, so we're helping them look for different jobs, uh, full time jobs out there.
Uh, job descriptions often are, you know, a full page, you know, in terms of job duties, you're helping with this and leading this project.
(27:28):
And it's just these different aspects of of the one sort of umbrella topic.
So it's important for them to be able to get some, some really experience in a lot of those different, different areas.
So what do you feel like? We've talked a lot about benefits and that's very, very clear.
Uh, what are some of the limitations you felt with, uh, some of the, uh, working with interns?
(27:54):
I think. Recognizing sometimes that they are still students.
Um, and they're maybe in more of a mode of.
You know, professor gives assignments. I complete assignments, kind of wait for my next assignment type.
Um, you know, that's just kind of where they're at in life.
(28:17):
Oh, yeah. And so. Really understanding that.
That's kind of. Most of the time how they're going to come into your internship.
And I'm looking for opportunities to help them grow as professionals.
Um, I think I mentioned sometimes this is people's very first opportunity to work in a professional environment.
(28:41):
So it's been conversations that you need to have that you might not expect to have.
Talking about expectations for when we arrive at work,
expectations or if we're going to be sick or late, how we communicate with our supervisor in our teams.
Um, some of those types of things that you really are teaching people, maybe for the first time.
(29:06):
Yeah. So. That's kind of part of what I think is the responsibility of, uh, of, uh, supervisor.
Um, I think it's things that people and I might not always expect to be doing.
Um, I also think sometimes folks say, well, this is, you know, the digital generation,
they must know everything there is to know about Excel, for example.
(29:28):
Well, really, we shouldn't assume they have skills just because, um, you know, they're they're very, um.
Technology savvy. Um, certainly we notice our students take up those skills very quickly.
Um, but don't necessarily assume that they have them just because, um, you know, of a certain age or place in their education.
(29:57):
Yeah, that's that's really great. It's such an important thing to think about.
And, and this idea of, of holding space with some guardrails, you know, finding that balance of, uh, autonomy for the insurance to,
to really kind of stretch your legs and learn some things and projects, but understand that they are students.
Um, I know some of the conversations that I've had previously with.
(30:19):
With folks that work with students, uh, especially in the pharmacy curriculum, when the clerkships were, uh, graded and evaluated to a certain extent.
So students were kind of worried about what grade they were getting and not necessarily, um.
Uh, solely focused on, you know, the patient outcomes.
And, uh, so. There is a time there where students really need to, uh, adjust their lens at.
(30:44):
And we help them with that. I think two student employees.
Um, this student is first in the summer.
Most often of our students are taking credit. It's really just for our internship.
They may take classes or they're, um, really flipping into that all in spring semester.
We we do really adjust our expectations for students.
(31:08):
We tell them we expect that they're focused on their studies.
We really limit the amount of time that they can work with our teens to 20 hours or less.
And we let them know up front. You know, mid-terms, finals, those types of things.
(31:28):
We expect not to see what's much. We expect to see less hours, you know, when you're focusing on those things.
And that's fine. We just get really well about what availability is.
Um, another piece of advice for employers.
If you're thinking about taking on interns, you got to be really flexible during the school year with your hours.
(31:50):
And we're lucky our office that are open ag vibe. It doesn't matter if a student comes, you know, at ten or at two.
Our staff are here. We just need to know when they'll be here to plan work for them.
But we can kind of let students come and go between classes or anything like that.
Um, not all employers have that ability to be that flexible, but I think in general, if you're trying to take on students,
(32:16):
you've got to know they may have a required course at, you know,
10:00 right in the middle of the morning, you know, make come for an hour or two before or after.
But they've got to be there at that time, and that's going to be the priority.
It has to be the priority.
Um, so something to really plan around if you're planning an internship especially, I would say, during the fall and spring semester.
(32:41):
Okay. See? Thanks so much for sharing details about your internship program.
I. I so appreciate how, um, intentional you all are with your your planning.
I think the sometimes that planning piece can sound intimidating,
but I think it makes the work so much easier if you do a lot of that planning on the front end, what would you agree with that?
(33:01):
Very much, yes. Um, and I think it it makes it easier for everybody can be a little overwhelming to say,
oh my goodness, I'm going to bring on five whole people all at once.
Uh. Um, and so really having a good plan and having a team that's helping with that.
So it's not one person finding work for all of those people to do.
(33:24):
It's a team of folks helping to, you know, guide that work, oversee that work.
I think that really knows. And so, yeah, that's a huge component to have buy in with other staff that can can really hold this program as a group.
Yeah. That's a very, very important component of this.
(33:44):
Uh, for sure.
Well, before we wrap, are there any other key details that you were kind of hoping to share about the intern program or internships in general?
I mean, one thing, um, we really also, I think to get our really successful classes, we've spent a lot of energy on the front end recruiting.
(34:08):
So we are at career fairs and we are building a contact list of students.
You know, they can give us their name, give us their emails so that when we are going to be hosting our internship,
we're sending the flier directly to them saying, hey, it's ready to apply.
We've had it posted on things like handshake. We've had really good relationships with, um, the internship folks over in the school.
(34:36):
And so they're sharing our information with students.
Uh, occasionally we end up in front of a classroom.
So really trying to build our awareness for our students and what our internship is also helps us to attract really high quality students.
Um, that makes it very hard to choose. Um, of course.
(35:00):
Um, but I think, too, if you're looking to get into an internship, you're looking for really high quality students.
Sdsu has no shortage of high quality students, taking sure that you're, um, putting yourself out there in a way that's really attractive to that.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Yeah. Thanks. I think it's just engaging in the process.
(35:21):
Right. And just trying to find who the helpers are in this space.
And so, um, my office and folks at the school, um.
Uh, yeah. All sorts of interested parties on campus are trying to help each other.
It would probably be good. Before we wrap the episode to delineate the difference and discuss the idea that some internships can be for credit.
(35:45):
Uh, some internships might just be, uh, it's the paid internship without without credit.
How does that work with with your program? And you know, what are some of the the differences there?
So we have had students take the internship for credit and not credit those two students.
Their work looks identical. They have the exact same experience from our side.
(36:11):
What really makes the difference is that they are working with the, uh,
internship coordinator in their academic college to ensure that our internship meets the academic requirements.
Uh, it's not a heavy lift for the employer.
Um, maybe things like. They need a brief job description.
(36:32):
They need to know who is overseeing the work, who the supervisors are.
Just some very basic things that most attire employers are going to be doing anyway.
Um, and then a lot of the work is really on the side of the student.
Uh, they may be writing a paper for their academic department a couple of times throughout the experience.
(36:53):
They may be doing, um, like a presentation on their experience.
Um, so whatever it is that their internship coordinator has kind of determined is required for them to earn those academic credits.
I believe they can still register, um, for 1 to 3 credits.
And that really comes down to how many hours they're working. Um, so they do need to put in those work hours.
(37:18):
Again, in our experience, they're probably working more than the required hours and evening.
Um, so those are kind of the the basic things that differentiate the for credit and not for credit options.
But yes, as I said, we provide identical experiences for students whichever way they choose to take college.
(37:39):
Yeah. Good deal. Yeah. And and the folks that are listening, if you're interested in, in trying to pursue that,
um, there's some of those questions about a four quarter internship. I, you know, feel free to contact me.
I'm in touch with those all those coordinators and so we can get you in touch with the right people to make sure you,
uh, complete the right paperwork and answer the questions and stuff. So, um.
(38:02):
Yeah. Good. I'm glad.
Glad we discussed that, that little piece, because sometimes that can be a, uh, a big factor in terms of what the internship can look like.
We certainly have programs on our campus that, um, encourage or or occasionally even require internship experience for students.
And so they may be looking for an experience that can fit that need as they're working towards their graduation.
(38:28):
Casey, thank you so much for joining me on Career Connections that we were able to discuss some details about your program and internships generally.
I hope, listeners, I hope you found this, this valuable.
But Cassie, I want to thank you for your time and really appreciate you you connecting with me today.
Thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to Career Connections.
(38:52):
Please follow our podcast to hear our thoughts on other related topics and for topics,
suggestions or questions, you may contact me at Kevin Dot Fullerton at Ste data edu.
And for more information about my office, please go to careers dot at the state that Edu.
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