Revisiting Internships in Grad School

Acquire new skills to land your dream job

A mid-career decision to change industries may mean that while you’ve spent valuable time in a professional environment, you now need an entirely new set of skills before landing that dream job.

And if you’ve found yourself back in school, you may want to consider an internship, which could help you gain some of the first-hand knowledge and skills that will compliment your new advanced degree.While a master’s degree in Public Policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago doesn’t require an internship, it’s certainly encouraged, says Lydia Lazar, associate dean for Recruitment and Career Development at the Harris School. “We believe that it’s important for most students to have an opportunity to work in the types of organizations and positions they plan to seek when they complete their graduate work,” Ms. Lazar notes.

The Harris School’s program is a two-year intensive curriculum, which means students attend classes in a traditional manner and commit to a full-time schedule. Under this structure, students have the interim summer free from classes; many choose to gain internship experience during this time.

And while it may not be required, almost all students take advantage of the Harris School’s help in obtaining an internship to add to their arsenal of work experience. “Focusing on their new knowledge and skills, while considering their former experience as added value, can be helpful,” says Ms. Lazar. “We also assure experienced individuals that career changers at all levels are considered good candidates for internships. They’re not only for inexperienced undergrads or graduate students without prior experience.”

This was especially true for Francesca Rodriquez, who recently completed her second graduate degree at the Harris School after having worked in several art museums and a non-profit startup in San Francisco. “I got interested in technology policy at the start-up in San Francisco,” she recalls. “I realized I needed to go back to school (for a policy degree) to get the job I wanted.”

For Ms. Rodriquez, it was a domino effect to her end goal. The tech experience in San Francisco led her to a summer internship at a Washington D.C. think tank, which lead her to her current position: a full-time internship with the City of Chicago in the Department of Innovation and Technology. The position is giving her the insider perspective she needs for policy work – a perspective she wouldn’t have gained without this internship.

That insider perspective is why traditional MBA students at the University of Notre Dame, about 50 percent of whom are career-changers, must complete an internship before graduation. “These internships are not ‘intern‘ level,” says Patrick Parella, director of MBA Career Development at University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “They’re demanding jobs with real, live projects that the students are expected to complete.” Mr. Parella sees this as beneficial for both the company and the student.

“More and more companies are using summer internships as their main source for full-time hires,” Mr. Parella reports. “The summer internship provides companies, as well as the students, a chance to test drive the position. In some ways, it’s a 10 to 12 week interview.” Despite this model’s benefits, time is often of the essence for returning students, which is why Notre Dame also offers an Executive MBA program for students who maintain a full-time work schedule. This program doesn’t require an internship, which Mr. Parella notes would be too difficult for those with 40-hour work weeks to complete.

Many of the Executive MBA students may be seeking advancements in their current industries; however, if entering unfamiliar territory, an internship may still help ease the transition. Kelly Barry, instructor and academic program coordinator at Loyola University Chicago’s Institute for Paralegal Studies in the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, says only about a third of students in her graduate program complete internships. Those who don’t may already have some legal background or are still working full-time.

“It’s not imperative to succeed,” says Ms. Barry. But, she adds, “Generally, students who have completed internships are placed in permanent positions sooner after graduation than students without an internship or legal experience.” Ms. Lazar agrees that the opportunity for full-time employment post-internship can be a great motivator to seek one. “Employers tend to look first at their interns when hiring for career employment or permanent full-time positions,” she says.

Rebecca Silva had an MBA in hand and eight years experience on Wall Street when she moved to California to work in apparel showrooms. When she realized sales and traveling wasn’t something she wanted to do forever, she became interested in law. Recognizing the long process to earn a law degree, she started seeking paralegal programs.

“I was always looking a couple years ahead and this was the next step I needed to get where I wanted to be,” she says. Her friends who were paralegals, she recalls, were happy with their jobs – not to mention hiring prospects were pretty good. She decided on Loyola’s program because it was approved by the American Bar Association and required a higher degree of education to apply (a bachelor’s versus the associate’s required by many other programs). Because she didn’t have a background in law, she decided to use some of her credits for an internship.Loyola helped place her as a paralegal at the law firm of Goldberg Kohn, which eventually hired her after the internship. “I think I brought a lot more life experience,” says Ms. Silva. “It was nice for me and nice for them.”

But even if an internship doesn’t lead directly to a job, that doesn’t render it meaningless. The networking and references you may gain from the experience in your prospective field can be of help after you’ve earned the degree, not to mention another bullet point on your resume that gives you the first-hand experience for which employers will be looking.

Kim Burgess, who’s studying at the Harris School with a focus on education policy, experienced this at her summer fellowship with the Education Pioneers in San Francisco. Everyone she worked with was interested in the same area of policy and reform, but possessed different expertise and backgrounds. She also was able to work with leaders of the school district. “This experience has been invaluable as far as understanding how districts work,” she says. “I can only get so far in my studies of education policy to understand the dynamics of these organizations. You only get this experience from working in it.”

Ms. Burgess believes that staying in touch with the school district and the people she has met there, as well as the first-hand experience, will help her in her future endeavors. But does it deflate one’s ego to so suddenly fly down the metaphoric career totem pole to an intern level? “A little bit,” says Ms. Rodriquez. “But only because I had so much work experience and then to not make any money for this long…You have to pay your dues. This is part of the process of getting a better job.” That’s exactly how Ms. Silva saw it, even though a few years ago she may have felt differently. “If I was in my 20s or 30s, when you’re a little more ego-driven, it probably would have bothered me,” she says. “But at 39, it doesn’t.”