Internships. Learning Through Work

1. Pre-reading task:
You have probably tried some holiday or part-time jobs. Discuss with your partner how you adapted to:
– your new employer;
– the management style;
– working in a team;
– the new rules;
– the amount of responsibility;
– the dress code, if any.

2. Read the article:
In today’s highly competitive world, a university degree that incorporates work experience is the first step towards ensuring a foothold in the employment market. Student work placements in an outside organization, also called internships, are de rigueur these days. A dwindling number of universities now retain the pure classroom-based system of education. Although internships are optional at most academic institutions, students are well advised to take up these opportunities to enhance their career prospects. Students are assisted to finding work experience that reflects their career aspirations and required skills development.
Most universities and colleges recognize the need to offer students high quality work placements. Students not only work for an employer, usually two or three days a week for a semester but also relate their academic study to their workplace. They learn from real problems in real situations. Some employers have better equipment and technology than academic institutions. Students are then assessed by their institutions, through portfolios that include reports on work experience, appraisals of projects, self-evaluation of performance and evidence of project outcomes.
Besides these short-term internships, some institutions also offer four-year sandwich degree courses where students, usually in their third year, undertake work placements, which can be for a year or two six-month periods. While the semester internships are unpaid, sandwich programme placements are normally remunerative. Students are given responsibility for the development and implementation of systems and projects integral to their host company. Because of the nature of the work undertaken, students are supervised closely by the workplace supervisor and a university staff member. The opportunity of working abroad is a particularly exciting one, giving students an insight into the work culture of another country and thus broadening their perspective.
The benefit of these placements to employers are no less. Thousands of organizations, ranging from the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights to NASA and the British Parliament, offer work experience to interns, many with a view to offering permanent employment after graduation to students who have shown potential. The student will be familiar with the company and the corporate culture, and the employer has had the opportunity to evaluate the student’s work, habit, productivity.

From http: www.science-engineering.net

3. Vocabulary:
foothold –
de rigueur –
dwindling –
enhance –
assessed –
appraisal –
outcome –
remunerative –
insight –

4. True or False? Decide whether these statements are true or false and correct the false ones.
1. The positive effect of the internship is a chance to learn from life situations.
2. For company managers, internships are a good chance to see whether a new employee is working out.
3. Internship is any working experience of a student.
4. Managers don’t usually provide a student with a salary.
5. In most universities internships are a must.

5. Provocative thinking:
1. What are the benefits that work placements can bring students?
2. What are the advantages that recruiting interns can bring employees?
3. Which benefits are the most important for you personally? Rank the benefits mentioned in the article in order of importance for you.
4. What problems are there for companies offering placements?
5. What is better for a company: to have young initiative staff or elder experienced employees?
6. Are there any fields of business where it is more favorable to employ freshmen? Less favorable?
7. Would you prefer to work with an employee of your age and same interests outside work or with an elder person with experience to learn from?

6. Give 2–4 word headline to each paragraph and underline the key-sentence in it.

7. Make a list of at least 3 additional reasons for taking internship, besides those mentioned in the text.

8. What do these abbreviations stand for?
1. NASA =
2. UN =
3. BBC =
4. GEC =
5. FBI =
6. CIA =
7. NATO =
8. USA =
9. GB =
10. EC =
11. B&B =
12. Washington, DC =

9. Link up the best work-combinations.

1. short-term	a. market
2. permanent	b. institution
3. the benefit	c. company
4. better	d. the work
5. workplace	e. internships
6. employment	f. experience
7. project	g. culture
8. to evaluate	h. of the placement
9. host	i. outcomes
10. academic	j. employment
11. corporate	k. supervisor
12. work	l. equipment

 10. Write the words by filling in the table.

NOUN	VERB	ADJECTIVE
1. …	…	experimental
2. …	…	paying
3. …	…	productive
4. …	to evaluate	…
5. …	…	developing
6. …	to be responsible	…
7. competition	…	…
8. …	…	managing
9. …	to recognize	…
10. adviser	…	…

11. Divide the words into prefix, stem, suffix they consist of:
Example: disorientation:
dis – negative prefix;
orient – root;
tion – noun-forming suffix.

1. competitive –
2. employment –
3. organization –
4. internship –
5. optional –
6. development –
7. employer –
8. academic –
9. performance –
10. outcome –
11. evidence –
12. unpaid –
13. remunerative –
14. undertake –
15. supervisor –
16. particularly –
17. potential –
18. insight –
19. productivity –

12. Imagine yourself an intern and write a letter:
– to your possible future boss asking him or her to employ you as an intern;
– to your present employer asking him to give you a recommendation.

13. Act out a dialog between:
– a successful intern after the internship;
– an unsuccessful intern after the internship.

Key:
Ex. 4. 1. True; 2. True; 3. False; 4. True; 5. False
Ex. 8.
1. NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2. UN = United Nations
3. BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation
4. GEC = General Electric Company
5. FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation
6. CIA = Central Intelligence Agency
7. NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization
8. USA = United States of America
9. GB = Great Britain
10. EC = European Community
11. B&B = bed and breakfast (type of a hotel)
12. Washington, DC = District of Columbia
Ex. 9. 1. e; 2. j; 3. h; 4. l; 5. k; 6. a; 7. i; 8. d; 9. c; 10. b;11. q; 12. f