By ALI PRICE
STAFF WRITER

In a recent publication by the Princeton Review titled, Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Schools That Give you the Best Bang for Your Tuition Buck, St. Lawrence was raked one of the best 25 colleges for internships in the United States. Students at St. Lawrence and schools across America ranked their respective schools’ internship programs on their accessibility to internship placements.

St. Lawrence has exceptional programs which help guide students in the right direction toward landing an internship through alumni connections, online platforms, and university/internship fellowships. Career Services supports St. Lawrence students on their internship hunt by offering them with workshops, panels, and their office hours. During office hours, students are able to learn how to prepare for an interview, how to craft a resume/cover letter, and so much more.

SAINTSLink is one of the schools most valuable online internship search engines. It is an online platform which allows to browse hundreds of local and nationwide internship/work opportunities from reputable employers-whoa are often SLU alumni. Students are able to streamline their search by applying filters based on their preferred industry, job function, and more. They are able to apply to postings within minutes utilizing their stored resumes, cover letters, and additional documents. Other internship/job search engines Career Services recommends checking out are Rising Star Internships, Internshipprograms.com, and DCInterships.org. More internship search engines can be found on Career Services websites at http://www.stlawu.edu/career-services/internship-resources.

The programs which Career Services highly recommends its students to explore are the University and Internship Fellowship. The University and Internship Fellowship programs are programs that provides students with funding for full time summer research/work over a period of nine weeks. During the University Fellowships students grow intellectually, are able to create close relationships with their professors/mentors outside of the classroom, and are able explore topics of interest while getting paid through scholarships.

University and Internship Fellowships are becoming more and more popular on the St. Lawrence campus, and Jennifer Lifsitz ‘17 is a great example of that. This past summer she interned at Boston’s New England Aquarium. She worked at a marine science summer camp She working with children and marine science-technology. “It was perfect practice for my intended future career as a biology teacher,” she said. Lifsitz had attended the aquarium when she was younger, so she thought it was pretty cool to be back there again. Reflecting on her time at St. Lawrence and her time spent at Boston’s New England Aquarium, she felt that the courses and knowledge she had gained thus far into her life and SLU career had prepared her for her transition into her internship duties. “I am very thankful for this opportunity,” she said. “ I can see the impact I had on the students at the summer camp, and this experience has definitely impacted my life.”

Like many internships for undergraduate students today, Lifsitz’s internship was unpaid. This would have turned many away, but it did not turn her away. Because of the financial support St. Lawrence offered her, she was able to participate in this amazing experience. Earlier last year, she had applied for Internship Fellowship funding through Career Services. She was awarded the Daniel L. Brindisi ’89 and Cynthia Brindisi ‘P19 Internship Fellowship. “Because I was helped out by two alumni, it allowed me to commute and altogether take on the unpaid internship” she said, with gratitude. The University and Internship Fellowship programs provides students with the opportunity to be paid in unpaid or underpaid work/research positions.