Internships

Bloomrield College requires all CAT majors to take an internship at some poin during their college career. Internships are offered in the form of a class as well as an actual job. The course is offered multiple times a year, primarily during the spring, summer, or fall. Jobs at internship sites may be either paid or unpaid.

Time for the course is devided between 100 hours of on-site work and small assignments due in an online classroom. This helps to facilitate dialouge and interaction between all students and the professor, even if they are not meeting in a physical classroom. Assignents are used to encourage students to think about both their career and life goals. The process helps students to better prepare for a career outside of college and how to succeed in an ever-changing world.

The entire process of the course includes, very early on, writing a complete cover letter and resume. The director for the Career Counseling, Anna-Marie Tuttiven, assists everyone in building a reputable portfolio to send out to potential employers and internship sites alike. After that, Professor Laura Nova teaches all of the skills needed for the class. Blomfield College's Internship program prepares students in ways many other schools normally do not.

Preparation
Before beginning the internship search, one must know when they want to take the internship. This whole preparation process should be given a six month window. A fatal mistake would be to start too late. Find out what you need to do and how much time you'll need to get it done.

Beginning the Search
Once it is decided when the internship will take place, the time will come to meet with Career Counseling. A few meetings will be set up with Anna-Marie Tuttiven where all pertinent information will be explained and given out. She helps potential interns develop a full cover letter and resume, which will be sent out to hopeful employers.

In an ideal scenario, the internship should be closely related with one's major. With this in mind, the long list of internship sites can be wittled down to a few dozen that are relevent, with another dozen that are slightly less related. After a list of locations is compiled, the letters are sent out. Send as many as possible and then some. Internships are never guaranteed, so the more letters that are sent out, the better the odds of landing a job in time for the class.

The Course
The actual internship course at Bloomfield College begins in a classroom. There, the new interns meet the past interns to share experiences. Professor Nova, who runs the course, also explains all pertinent information about both the class itself and her expecations of interns.

After two or three meetings to establish all the interns as legitimate career-minded people, the rest of the course is taken online. The format in the digiatl online classroom is fairly standard and not overly time consuming. In general, small, open-ended assignments are posted Wednesday which are to be responded by Sunday. From there, everyone must respond and/or critique one or two other student's work to further share ideas and experiences. For not physically meeting very much, there is quite a bit of dialogue between all of the students as well as the professor.

At the conclusion of the course, a final write-up must be completed. This is to be submitted with all of the formal documents, including the cover letter, resume, time sheets, contracts, and progress reports. The time sheets should account for a minimum of 100 hours over the course of roughly two to four months (or however long it takes the intern).

Beyond
A massive benefit of completing an internship would be that the internship sites could provide the interns with a potential job opportunity either with the company or a related one can be arranged. Also, as one works in these new, professional settings, it is easy to develop new ideas for career choices. For example, a musician who wants to compose may take an internship at a recording studio. At the end of the job, though, a new interest may be garnered in audio engineering. This unforseen possibility now opens up a whole new world to the musician. The goal of an internship is not just to work in a related field for a short time, but to find out just how many other careers can be found in one broad heading that may not have been discovered without the inside information.