The Cooperative Education and Internship Office is designed to help students acquire skills that will be helpful to them in their future careers.
This office, which is part of Career Placement and Internship Services, helps connect students with employers who are looking for interns.
Interested students must be at least at the sophomore level, except for business students who need to be at least a junior. Undergraduate students must have a minimum 2.0 GPA and graduate students need a minimum 3.0 GPA.
Students receive elective credits for their internship, depending on the hours worked. They will also receive an evaluation that will determine the grade they receive. The same drop/add rules that apply to classes also apply to the internship, so students should begin looking around the time class registration begins.
Wayne Speer, assistant director of the program, said that some of the more sought after fields are environmental health, industrial engineering, computer science and electronics.
The office deals with all majors, but nursing and the college of education are rarely involved because students are required to complete clinicals and student teaching.
Students can pursue an internship during any semester; however, they must work through its entirety to receive credit.
“The office generally places 30 to 40 students during the fall and spring semesters and 40 to 70 during the summer,” Speer said. “Summer is definitely the most popular for internships.”
“Most internships are within a 50-mile radius of campus. Some are as diverse as Sony in California, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama or environmental health positions in Daytona Beach, Fla.,” Speer said.
Through the internship program, students can earn credit for work that will help them find jobs, and the work is easier to document because it is a part of your transcript.
For more information, visit the office in the Advisement Resources Career Center (ARC) on the second floor of the Culp Center, call 439-5388 or visit the web site at www.etsu.edu/careers.

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