On-Campus Internships Open Doors for Students

PROVO, Utah – Apr 03, 2013 – In today’s competitive job market having an outstanding résumé is not just a good idea—it’s required. To give students more opportunities for career development, the Marriott School of Management offers an on-campus internship program.

The experience-based curriculum teams up students from all over campus to work on semester-long internship projects.

“This program gives students the opportunity to try out a career,” says Roger McCarty, director of experiential learning. “Students who participate gain work experience which makes them more employable and competitive in the internship and full-time employment markets.”

Interested students can register for any of the four, three-credit options: capital academy, real estate development, social innovation or experiential projects. Students are then grouped into teams of five and assigned to a specific company through an application process.

Offering crucial skills like leadership, teamwork and problem solving, the internship program gives students the opportunity to become part of the inner workings of a business. Cassie Catchatoorian, a marketing junior from Charlotte, N.C., is part of a team working for eBay on an employee retention project.

“We aren’t just interns,” Catchatoorian says. “They include us as part of their corporate team. We are right in the middle of things.”

For Elliot Holder, a senior studying finance from Perth, Australia, the program helped him land an international internship.

“I wanted some experience that was more substantial than a typical college job for my résumé,” Holder says. “Working with the program gave me the practical experience I needed to get an internship with a Fortune 500 company in Singapore. My on-campus internship was an essential building block.”

But getting an internship isn’t the only benefit. According to Kristen McGregor, managing director of the undergraduate programs office, the experience leads to a marked difference in résumé content and interviewing skills.

“Students who go through an on-campus internship are better prepared to enter the workforce,” McGregor says. “They have experience that makes them authoritative and are a solid investment for companies.”

For more information about the Marriott School’s on-campus internship program visit oci.byu.edu.

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems and entrepreneurship. The school’s mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School’s graduate and undergraduate programs.