page 6 perspectives
Internships earn money, experience, contacts
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Photo by Mitch Hrdlicka
Vernon Cornish, left, and Joel Englebart, right, discuss the merits of an advertising project with student Kevin
Eaton, center. Cornish and Englebart interviewed last month for the Omaha World Herald.
By Mary Kempkes
The job market is tight and experience can make the
difference between a meal ticket and an unemployment
check but graduating seniors find themselves in a Catch-22
situation.
How do you get a job without experience or experi
ence without a job?
An internship could be the answer, according to several
UNL students and professors.
Alice Hrnicek, a junior journalism major, took an
internship for this summer with the Arizona Republic in
Phoenix, Ariz.
Hrnicek said an internship is a must for her to get a job
upon graduating because, "it's a very competitive market
out there."
Employers tell UNL professors that an internship
work experience related to a student's major has often
been the deciding factor for employment.
"I have had . . . employers and personnel directors say
over and over again 'If I see an internship experience on a
resume, that resume comes to the top of the stack,' " said
Millie Katz, coordinator for the College of Arts and Sci
ences Experiential Education program.
Jim Neal, a UNL journalism professor, agreed.
"If every employer had his way, he would hire some
one with two years experience. So internships, part-time
jobs and work on campus newspapers make up p; t of
that," he said.
Katz and Neal push internships to students with i fair
rate of success.
Last year 213 students were placed in the Arts and Sci
ence program and 22 news editorial journalism majors got
jobs last summer at newspapers.
"Most students who want internships get them," Neal
said.
Students are equally enthusiastic about their intern
ships. They point out the experience opportunities and
the possibilities of making contacts that will help upon
graduation.
Bill Domeier, a senior mechancial engineering major,
participated in a co-op program supervised by the College
of Engineering. In the program, students take two
semesters out of college to work for a sponsor company.
Domeier said it will take a year longer for him to graduate
but it's worth it.
"I could have graduated with a regular mechanical
engineering degree but an internship will make it better
when I graduate," he said. "It will make it easier to find
ajob."
Students and counselors added that an internship
teaches lessons not taught in school.
Gary Sasse, a senior civil engineering major, worked
last summer for the Army Corps of Engineers. Sasse work
ed in Ottawa, Iowa, and spent time traveling up and down
the river doing survey work.
"I thought it was helpful," he said. "They don't do
anything like that here (at school). It's a different branch
of surveying that isn't taught here."
Chris Heng, a chemical engineering major, worked for
Omaha Public Power District at the Nebraska City plant.
"I think I got a lot of experience and learned things I
didn't learn in school about my major and about what
professional engineers have to do," he said.
Katz said the best part of some internships is that they
give students confidence in themselves.
"One girl told me after an internship in Washington,
'Now I know I can go to a large city and I know how to
handle myself,' " Katz said.
Bigger is not always better in an internship, Neal said.
"Sometimes the small newspaper is the better intern
ship because they offer a wider experience."
But an internship is not necessarily for everyone, Katz
said.
Financial difficulties will keep many students out of
the program, she said. Not all internships pay a salary. In
fact, some of the Washington, D.C., internships can cost
up to $1 ,100 a semester, she said.
Most journalism and engineering internships pay a
salary and ones with the military can pay up to $10 an
hour.
The non-paying internships are often best, Katz said,
because the employer is less likely to treat the student as
cheap labor or assign him peon jobs. Non-paid interns get
more freedom with job assignments, she said.
And experience is not the only benefit of an intern
ship. Internships through the Arts and Science program
can give six hours credit or more, Katz said.
Katz cautioned students not to look for a cure-all in an
internship. It will not get a job for everyone she said, or
the experience they seek.
"Sometimes I think students expect too much of an
internship," she said. "They're not gonna save the world
or change the organization."
ROTC, sweat pay for college, give start on job
By Jim Garrett
Army. Navy. Air Force. Marines. They don't ask for
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SIGN UP NOW FOR INTERVIEW AT
E. CAMPUS PLACEMENT OFFICE
WEDNESDAY. MARCH 4.
experience, they give it.
So says the recruiting song for U.S. military agencies.
What the song doesn't say, is that they will pay for
college.
Although military service might seem incompatible
with school, all branches of the military offer programs
that will pay a recruit's college education while letting
him choose his field of study. In return, the student must
enlist for a contracted number of years and possibly join
the Reserve Officers Training Corps - ROTC.
Lt. Carl Gruenler, UNL Recruitment Coordinator for
the Naval and Marine ROTC programs, said, "It is a really
fine program, one which students ought to be familiar with
not so much as they choose a caieer in the military, but
possibly to have alongside the rest of the marbles in the
bag."
The ROTC, program under the Navy or the Marines,
offers the student the opportunity to experience military
science their first two years in college without an obliga
tion for a term to the service.
Gruenler said the first two years are quite valuable in
that it can be a time of gathering experience and informa
tion about military life before signing up.
There are two main points in today's Naval and Marine
ROTC programs, Gruenler said, "the four-year scholarship
program and the four-year non-scholarship program with
out any governmental assistance."
More students enrolled
Gruenler said there are 96 students enrolled in the
Naval and Marine programs and 40 freshmen scholarship
students, more than in preceding years.
The increase, Gruenler said, is because Navy got the
word out to more college students and high school
counselors.
A tight economy adds to the increase, Gruenler said, be
cause ROTC offers tuition payments.
Gruenler said that at least 17 juniors had to be enrolled
in the ROTC programs for it to remain functional, other
wise the Naval program could have been put on probation.
Tins is the first year where enrollment was not in
doubt, he said.
A more intricate but versatile system of recruitment
for the military comes from two Department of Defense
assistant programs, the Educational Test Program and the
Educational Assistance Program.
Educational Coordinator Terry Palensky. of the Army
Recruiting Center of the Nebraska Element in Omaha,
said when the military went over to the volunteer system
it became a whole new ball game.
Marketing strategies
Palensky, a civilian recruiter the past four and half
years, acts as a liaison between the recruiting command
and educational community.
He said the marketing direction and the sales and pro
motional systems have been reworked. Under the new
DOD programs, initiated by Congress for fiscal year 1981
last October, blocks can be linked together to offer a stu
dent the best possible package.
Additional factors like low population, rural environ
ment, partial industrialization, family ties and the overall
conservative nature to the Midwest and Plains area, also
contributed to the formation by the Congress to enact
these new recruitment programs, he said.
The fact that midwesterners don't feel unemployment,
recession or inflation as badly as the rest of the United
States hinders additional recruiting efforts.
Palensky said if an individual opted for college training
but could wait until his or her tour of duty was over he
or she could receive a total of $7,800 towards financing
a college education after the service. But if he or she
decided against higher education after the term was up he
or she could receive 60 percent of that package as a cash
bonus paid directly to them, after their tour was complet-
Another method offers the opportunity to transfer
tfieir educational benefits to their dependents, he said.
Eor example, an enlistee could transfer the S7.80Q to his
or her children. Continued on Page 8