07-30-2023 EDU - Flipbook - Page 2
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The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, July 30, 2023
University of Baltimore health and human services students complete an internship of 120 hours to complement what they have learned in the classroom.
Delivering what industries need
University partnerships with the business community provide benefits all the way around
By Carol Sorgen, Contributing Writer
"H
igher education is going through
an existential crisis,” says Mary
Ann Scully, dean of Loyola
University Maryland’s Sellinger
School of Business. “It’s not just a matter anymore of where you go, but should you go. What
are schools offering that will give students the
critical thinking and communications skills
that will prepare them for their professional
life?”
Scully, a banker for four decades who also
received her MBA from Loyola, takes seriously the need for Loyola to stay connected to
the business community. “This generation of
students will have more jobs in their lifetime
than any other generation,” she says. “We have
to prepare them with the skills they will need
to make those moves throughout their career.
“Working with the business community is
not just about setting up internships and job
placements,” Scully continues. “We want to
make sure that the business community understands what we’re doing.” That means having
ongoing dialogues with employers to make sure
Loyola is offering students the most relevant
research, as well as opportunities, in addition
to internships, such as short-term consulting
projects, many of which can lead to full-time
employment once a student has graduated.
“It’s a win-win for both students and businesses,” says Scully. “It’s an ongoing partnership that helps us identify what companies are
looking for and what we can do to meet those
needs.”
Hands-on Experience at University of Baltimore
University of Baltimore has long recognized
the importance of providing students with realworld experiences. “The school’s community
partnerships are an integral part of the professional development of our students and our
commitment to the community is to provide
students the skills and knowledge necessary to
assume leadership positions and/or to transi-
tion into leadership roles upon graduation,”
says Alan S. Weisman, M.A., LFACHE, lecturer
and undergraduate program director of the
health management program in the school of
health and human services.
“Additionally, we have an advisory board
that is comprised of health leaders in the community who provide guidance to the faculty
with regard to curricular changes and employer
expectations regarding the skills our students
need to be successful in the industry,” Weisman
continues.
Health and human services students complete an internship of 120 hours onsite during
a 10-week period. The internship is taken
concurrently with an internship course. All
internships must be approved by the internship coordinator to ensure a management level
experience where the student can apply the
concepts and skills learned in the classroom
to the internship. The internship coordinator
makes an on-site visit, which includes the student and the internship site preceptor to discuss
the student’s progress on assigned projects.
“The internship experience is the perfect
opportunity to bridge the classroom learning
to a real-world environment,” says Weisman.
“These internship sites afford the students of a
robust experience in health care management
by partnering with middle and upper management preceptors with the expectation that they
will engage in activities that will positively
impact the operations of the organization.”
Among the program’s community partners
are Johns Hopkins Hospital, LifeBridge Health,
Maryland Department of Health, Maryland
Department of Aging, and the Immune
Deficiency Foundation, among many others.
Charles Lac is currently interning at the
Maryland Department of Aging (MDOA) and
calls it “my most professional health care experience.”
“Before this internship, my only experience
in health care had been working at the front
Industry needs,
continued on page 8
The benefits of experiential learning
Students gain valuable skills while making a difference
By Gregory J. Alexander, Contributing Writer
ment in the state. Some of the tech companies only have three fulltime employees
so the talent and hard work they receive
through interns helps these companies grow
and compete with larger companies.”
Routzahn notes that the MTIP internships are open to all majors, not just technology ones. For example, biology majors are
interning at the aerospace and technology
company Northrop Grumman, while media
and communications majors are interning
with biotechnology companies.
“The internships help students understand how vital technology is. No matter
what your major is, technology is an important part of it,” she says. Interns, she says,
get experience in areas such as product
development, artificial intelligence, analytics, cybersecurity, digital marketing, web
development, and more.
“Any time a student can share a project
or initiative that they were involved in and
show their value, it helps them stand out
when looking for a job. We’ve also seen how
these internships boost their confidence,”
Routzahn says.
L
ong gone are the days when a college internship consisted of making copies, filing and fetching coffee. Today’s interns are engaging
in meaningful work that not only
provides career skills but also impacts local
communities. Look no further than Nicholas
Dent, a Salisbury University student who
interns at the Eastern Shore Regional GIS
Cooperative, an outreach entity of Salisbury
University (SU) and a joint effort between
the Mid-Shore Regional Council, the TriCounty Council of the Lower Eastern Shore
of Maryland, the Upper Shore Regional
Council and SU.
Dent, who initially was a computer science major until he “fell in love” with geographic information systems (GIS) after
taking a geography class, has been involved
in several projects at ESRGC that have had
local and statewide impact. One involved
mapping the city of Salisbury’s impervious
surfaces so that the city could correctly
assess how much to tax businesses.
The project that he says excited him the
most is one that involves collecting, analyzing and visualizing the broadband internet
capacity across Maryland, part of a $2.44
million grant from the Office of Statewide
Broadband. The goal is to expand broadband internet technology to underserved
areas.
“We are mapping all the broadband providers in the state so that the broadband
infrastructure can be improved in the state.
I want to help create accessibility and equity
in order to help improve people’s lives,” Dent
says.
“One of the goals of this project is to
create a digital equity plan for the state,”
adds Lauren McDermott, ESRGC practice
manager. “The type of work we give the
Salisbury interns is quite intense and working on a statewide and federal initiative like
the broadband one is very exciting and looks
great on a resume.” McDermott adds that
the ESRGC has employed over 200 interns
over the past 20 years. “None of the work
we do could be done without the interns,”
she says.
McDermott says that some of the other
projects SU interns have been involved in
include a flood mapping project in partnership with the State Highway Administration
and housing condition assessment studies
Nicholas Dent, a Salisbury University student, interns at the Eastern Shore Regional GIS Cooperative.
for the cities of Cambridge and Crisfield,
Maryland.
Keeping Local Talent in State
While landing an internship can be a
launching pad to a great job after graduation, an unpaid one is not an option
for many college students. According to
the National Association of Colleges and
Employers’ annual survey, 50% to 60% of
eligible interns convert to full-time employees; however, “participating in an unpaid
internship is much harder, and often impossible, for students who cannot forgo a paycheck for a significant period. Consequently,
unpaid internships disproportionately benefit students who can afford to intern without
pay. As such, these students can access work
experience, skill development, and networks
that less privileged students cannot.”
With this in mind, the Maryland
Technology Internship Program (MTIP)
was created to help Maryland retain top
tech talent by increasing the number of paid
technical internships offered in the state.
Administered by University of Maryland,
Baltimore County, and funded by the State
of Maryland, the program offers financial
assistance to technology-based businesses,
as well as state and local agencies, to hire
more interns.
Christine Routzahn, director of the
career center at UMBC, says that the MTIP
not only provides students with paid internships that provide skills and work experience, it also “supports workforce develop-
One Voice Creates an Opportunity for All
When a student at Anne Arundel
Community College lobbied the school’s
Information and Instructional Technology
(IIT) division to create an internship opportunity on campus, the department listened
and did just so.
“He was a student that started at a fouryear university but decided it was not the
right place for him, so he enrolled at AACC
to study technology. He wanted to work at
the college, so an internship was created
that matched his skill set and interest,” says
Gwen Johnson, internship program coordinator at AACC. She notes that the while the
IIT division initially responded to an individual student’s inquiry, the internship has
created an opportunity for all students as the
IIT internship will be permanent.
“The internship not only provides
opportunities to apply skills learned in the
classroom, but also access to career mentorships via professionals in the field,” Johnson
says. For the student who advocated for the
internship, Johnson says that the internship
also showed him what was possible for his
career path, and he was subsequently offered
a junior IT support tech position through a
local employer.
