The Fort Worth Chamberletter

By Hanh Nguyen, marketing intern

Stop Six church of Christ GO Center Executive Director Loretta Burns discusses a project with Sara Shannon, TCU BRIDGE intern.

College is possible for many Texans, but most have a lack of knowledge or understanding of how to apply.

“There are lots of free resources to help students to get in college but the problem is that not many people know about that,” said Glenn Spoons, GO Center Coordinator at the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. “The main reason our kids don’t go to college is not about money, it is about motivation.”

To help ‘bridge the gap,’ the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce is working with the Texas Christian University BRIDGE Internship Program, which provides opportunities for TCU students to work and serve in non-profit and faith-based organizations.

Sara Shannon, senior Communication/Human Relations major at TCU, is a BRIDGE intern at the GO Center at Stop Six Church of Christ this semester. GO Centers are college- and career-information centers located on high school campuses and at other community-based organizations. Volunteers like Sara provide students and parents access to a variety of resources to help with college pursuits.

Sara’s goal is to build awareness about higher education and help students and parents realize attending college is possible. She guides students through the College for All Texans website, which has information about financial aid, college locations, degree plans and career choices. She currently assists and mentors three students who are in kindergarten, 3rd, and 10th grade.

Convincing students college is possible can be challenging, but Sara loves what she has been doing.

“I was nervous at first because I had never done something like this before,” said Sara. “But I want to help kids and be involved in the community.”

Sara’s 10th grade student has an unpredictable schedule because she doesn’t have transportation. But the student enjoys coming to the GO Center if she gets a ride.

“She has a hard family life and no one to really help her,” Sara said. “She wants to go college at University of Texas at Arlington but she doesn’t know how it would be possible for her. My role is to keep up that motivation and assist however I can with getting the information.”

In 2001, the 77th Legislature adopted Closing the Gaps by 2015, a proactive plan designed to increase Texans’ participation and success in higher education. As the result, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board launched College for Texans, a marketing and outreach initiative in 2002 with the Education: GO-Get-It campaign. Go Centers serve as the primary point of coordination between the Education: GO-Get-It campaign efforts and local communities. By 2007, Go Centers were set up in all 13 Fort Worth ISD high schools.

Harris Methodist clinical nutritionists Kelly Bracht and Tayla Robertson provide guidance to TCU nutrition student Kacy Maranto.

As repairs to the economy gather momentum, companies and small businesses in need of affordable staff can turn to internships and local universities’ career services departments to find students who need work experience, particularly in their field of study.

Locally, student interns have been readily available through long-running programs at the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University.

And last fall, Texas Christian University’s Career Services office launched its Internship Program.

The program aims “to assist employers with having a well-trained pool of potential employees while reducing the cost of recruiting and training,” Kimshi Hickman, Career Services associate director, said. “It allows for observation of a potential employee and retention of a greater number of employees.”

As in other universities’ intern programs, TCU students benefit from “an opportunity to work in their major field of study, before graduating, in order to gain practical work experience and a better understanding of the work place,” Hickman added.

Those are vital advantages, according to the Bethlehem, Pa.-based National Association of Colleges and Employers. Employers participating in the NACE Job Outlook 2009 Survey “reported a strong preference for college candidates with relevant work experience,” Executive Director Marilyn Mackes said.

“For college students, that experience is most typically gained through an internship or co-op assignment.”

That’s true in good and bad times, NACE said, explaining that results of the 2009 survey are similar to results in the 2008 and 2007 surveys when the economy was stronger.

“This is a clear indication that relevant work experience matters regardless of the job market conditions,” Mackes said.

“College students can better position themselves with potential employers by including an internship or co-op assignment in their college plan.”

Additionally, Mackes said, use of internships or co-op assignments in a difficult job market can minimize the time needed to fill openings.

“Our studies show that in a poor economy, when employers do have jobs, they often look first to their own interns and co-op students.”

Hickman noted that internship programs offer businesses many advantages during these difficult times, including “assistance for short-term projects – particularly when a fulltime person is not available” and adding “the extra person needed to help an organization grow to the next level when the funds are not available for full-time hire.”

Additionally, she said, “developing a structured internship program helps businesses create a pipeline for recruitment of new graduates, providing project help, sending ambassadors back to campus, increasing the diversity in your organization and finally bringing in new employees who perform at higher levels more quickly.”

Top Tips for Internships:

• Have a written job description
• Offer compensation and benefits
• Schedule intern orientation sessions
• Identify activities for fun and professional development
• Give frequent evaluations
• Provide visibility

Source: TCU Career Services

More links:

• More information about intern programs
  - www.internbridge.com
  - www.naceweb.org
  - www.internships.com
• TCU Career Services
• University of Texas at Arlington Career Services
• Texas Woman’s University Career Services
• University of North Texas Internships & Cooperative Education office