By Eli Rollo
At elite collegiate institutions around the country, students in every major feel the heat and pressure of the illusive “internship season” every year. Some students begin the hunt and recruitment process for their dream internship as early as the previous summer and landing the job could make or break their entire career. Internships are an important staple in the young professional’s life.
There’s a laundry list of consequences and cancellations from the coronavirus and it’s unsurprising that internships have joined the ranks. Not only can many companies not afford to support interns this summer who benefit more from their positions than their managers do it is not yet smart to have large groups of students convening in office buildings in major cities.
According to a survey by talent-acquisition software company Yello, 35 percent of college students who landed summer internships by April learned they were canceled due to COVID-19; 24 percent learned their internships would be offered remotely. For many who had summer internship plans pre-pandemic specifically college sophomores and juniors for whom summer 2020 is an important time for professional development this came as a massive switch of gears and a new hurdle to overcome. For others who were unable to complete interview processes as companies began canceling internship programs as early as March, the pandemic’s influence left them without the chance to so much as interview and network for future opportunities.
As what would have been the summer 2020 internship season commences, this year’s undergraduate students are left without the opportunity to seek out these résumé-building opportunities, network with professionals and continue to educate themselves on their chosen industry.
Kelsey Butler, a 22-year-old Red Bank native who attended Rutgers University, lost her internship with Nike Communications due to the onset of COVID-19. She had been interning with the company full-time and was on the precipice of a job offer when they cut the program short. Her offer had been a verbal agreement bereft of written verification. Butler majored in dance and communications, specializing in strategic public communications and is interested in working in social media in the future.
She has since been working at a local Billabong store and started managing the store’s social media to help improve her skills.
“I had a goal to have an internship for a notable company last summer, which I did, and another goal to have a job offer before I graduated, which I also did before the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. “I am now taking this time to further educate myself in the industry I hope to work in professionally. I think that this has made me a tougher, more passionate person.”
Despite the challenges she has and will face by way of the COVID-19 outbreak and her career, Butler appears optimistic about utilizing this unexpected shift in gears to be productive and develop new skills. She is one of thousands left with no choice but to problem solve and find a productive way to spend her time this summer in lieu of her internship. Butler may be without her stepping stone to full-time employment, however she seems positive that this set-back will make her stronger.
Although many were left without internships, others were presented with remote internship opportunities in lieu of previously in-person engagements.
Gabriela Garza, a Cornell University rising junior, had accepted her internship with Wings Over corporate offices in New York City before the COVID-19 outbreak. The company, a restaurant chain, has since taken measures to reshape the program to 20 percent in person, 80 percent remote. Previously, the interns were meant to work in the Wings Over stores for two weeks prior to beginning their corporate work in the New York City offices.
Now, they will still do the two weeks of work in the stores, and the corporate work will be online.
“The first two weeks are in person… working in their stores in Massachusetts.” Garza said, “The rest of the internship is virtual and by the sound of it, it seems that the corporate team has meticulously structured this internship program to simulate that of a normal, inperson internship. We will still be required to complete the same projects and attend meetings as if everything was in person.”
While Garza will not have the opportunity to work in the corporate offices in New York City this summer, the corporate team has prioritized the interns’ experience, going so far as to continue to pay them the same wage they would have earned had the internship been in person. Though this change in pace is certainly not what Garza, and others who will endure online internships, expected from the summer of 2020, they are fortunate that they will still have the internship on their résumés and the difficult circumstance as a larger learning experience.
Garza and Butler are some of the lucky ones. While they’ve both been disadvantaged by the COVID-19 outbreak, they’ve found ways to continue to supplement their education with field experience, circumstances permitting, and are both employed. Recent graduates and undergraduates who have lost their internships and had been counting on them to help pay off student loans will now have larger concerns about finding post-graduate full-time work, future application cycles and their access to job opportunities both this summer and in the future.
Though one could look at this summer as a setback and a complication, those with internships canceled or challenged by the coronavirus need to remember that a lack of internship experience this summer most likely won’t be held against them. And overcoming the challenges presented by this virus and working to self-educate and motivate will serve as a multifaceted, intriguing skill that would not exist without obstacle.
The article originally appeared in the June 11 – 17, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
