BY MADELYN FINK
As COVID-19 continues to impact all aspects of daily life, students struggle with the specific effects of the virus that prevent them from a crucial part of the college experience: getting an internship.
While college students’ have continually coped with restrictions affecting how they learn and socialize since the start of the pandemic, they have had a hard time finding internship opportunities, leaving many concerned for what life will look like after graduation.
Internships Postponed
“Due to COVID, my internship program was postponed and later cancelled. I am fortunate enough that I was able to find an internship recently in the Spring of my junior year, but I missed out on over a year of experience I could have had in my future career,” said Michelle Fondacaro, a 20-year-old marketing student at Ramapo College.
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 20 percent of summer and semester internships from 2020 were cancelled as a result of COVID-19; about 46 percent of internships were adapted virtually.
For many students like Fondacaro, there is a great fear of the future after graduation, as there are limited opportunities to gain hands on experience with so many restrictions.
Without internship experience, or at least in-person internship experience, college graduates are entering the workforce underprepared. On top of their limited work experience, students are also stepping out into post-graduation life at a time when unemployment rates are just now beginning to decline. As of April 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the unemployment rate reached about 15 percent; as of January 2021, the rate fell to 6.3 percent.
Fondacaro spent several months trying to replace her cancelled internship, with no luck as internship programs remained scarce. At the start of the pandemic, Fondacaro’s anticipated internship program with a media company initially decided to postpone their program until case numbers went down. Yet, as months went by without any indication of when it would be safe for interns to work in person, the company cancelled the program altogether rather than adapting virtually.
Online, students can expect an internship program to include online assignments to be sent in to their supervisors. While interns may get an understanding of the type of work associated with their anticipated career, there are still several factors that they miss out on from an online internship. Interns are unable to network on the job and form connections that can benefit them in the future.
Limited Opportunities
While many students lost internship opportunities at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, others have been unsuccessful in securing an internship so far as a result of the expectations for their areas of study.
Isabella Esposito, a 20-year-old psychology student at Seton Hall University, has been unable to find an internship as a result of COVID-19 restrictions, as an internship for her area of study typically would take place in a medical or clinical environment.
“Clinical observations are usually taken in hospitals or school settings, and obviously hospitals are very overcrowded and it’s very difficult to get an internship or complete clinical hours in that setting. And schools have just recently been opening up, so hopefully I’ll be able to find something in the summer or in the fall,” said Esposito.
Overworked Online
Other college students find that with virtual internships, there are increasingly less boundaries between the intern and their supervisors. Sydney Meehan, a 21-year-old law student at Ramapo College, has struggled to manage the large amounts of work given to her each day.
“Everyday, I wake up with at least five emails from my supervisor building on the last assignment. It feels like they are just giving me work to keep me busy and working every second of the day, almost like they’re forgetting I’m a full time student as well,” said Meehan.
Rather than providing her with important work that will teach her more about what a career in law will look like, Meehan feels that her internship program involves more busy, unnecessary work that interferes with school. With classes remaining online for the semester, it is believed that college students have more time and more flexible schedules, when this is not the case. Now, she struggles to balance her online internship work and her virtual courses.
As college internships have been continually impacted since the start of the pandemic, as restrictions begin to loosen college students, like Michelle Fondacaro, remain hopeful for the future.
“As much as it was difficult to find a good internship, now that I finally did I think that things will work out for me. I know once things open up again the opportunities will come back and everything will be okay, even if for right now things feel scary,” said Fondacaro.
Hi Madelyn, this was a very well-rounded piece. This is definitely a topic I’m concerned about, and I’d imagine a number of undergrads are as well. The way your audio clips were introduced flowed seamlessly, and I liked how you broke up Esposito’s quote with copy/audio. Narratively, I liked how it came full circle with people who do have internships, and how it’s affecting their schoolwork. I’m curious to see a follow-up piece about students that have graduated, and what the “real work world” will look like for this generation of graduates.
I do think the audio added to the story as it came directly from a student from our school experiencing the internship issues described in the article. She was honest about the drawbacks she was facing and it supported the body of the story. Maybe just edit out you asking the question and paraphrase her answer into the body of the story preceding the audio instead, but otherwise I thought it was well-done.