Internships as Valuable Stepping Stones
by Stefana Soitos, Senior Director of College & Career Pathways
April is National Internship Month–a time to recognize these valuable work-based learning opportunities.
Educator Cass Cacoq and TPZ student-intern Esperanza Knudson examing the structure of a garment as they consider ways to alter it. Esperanza is helping Cass to organize and support learning opportunities in the Fiber Studio at TPZ’s Innovation Center.
Watching our students move into and successfully through internship opportunities is central to our work-based learning team at TPZ. Students come to us looking for work experience; they are excited and motivated by the opportunity to submit an application, interview, and be accepted into what are often the first steps in their professional paths. As staff, we are lucky to be able to support our students as they move into the “I am” phase of our entrepreneurial student journey. By participating in internships, our students can proudly state: I am an intern. I am part of this work community. I am contributing meaningful work to an organization.
TPZ’s Theory of Change explains that “I AM reflects the culmination of students’ journey through TPZ, and embodies a sense of self they will carry with them throughout their lives.” Our students’ participation in internships is the perfect opportunity for them to start using the foundational skills they have developed through our core program and empowers them to develop professional relationships, build social capital, learn new technical skills such as Canva and Photoshop, and durable skills such as self-management and the ability to work independently, all while continuing to identify their career interests. A recent TPZ intern stated, “I was able to learn more and get to know lots of people and gain more experiences in lots of areas I really wasn’t good at. I was able to learn more about coding. I improved my problem-solving skills and I was able to improve my communication skills.”
American Student Assistance states: “Internships offer something classroom learning does not: the opportunity for real, competency-based and hands-on learning that is invaluable in preparing students for the realities of the working world. With more than 40% of jobs coming through referrals and personal connections, it is critical that students have the opportunity to build that social capital from an early age.” Similarly, “students who have internship experience are three times more likely than those without internship experience to have a post-college plan.”
J’khia Bullock and Vismark Melo, TPZ students interning in the Communications Department, work on the backend of the new TPZ website, adding Alt Text to photos, which helps people with visual disabilities understand the images.
For these reasons, TPZ is proud to support young people in pursuing internships with extensive wrap-around support. We vet organizations to ensure they’re able to provide high quality work-based learning opportunities for our students. And we provide specialized internship application working sessions where we coach students on completing applications and then coordinate practice interviews with them. While students are actively participating in their internships,
our team provides check-in meetings and other necessary support to ensure these experiences are truly meaningful. It’s our goal that our students are successful, they’re
building professional relationships, and are able to reflect deeply and positively on their experiences. Each student concludes their internship with an updated resume that highlights their internship responsibilities, with a stronger sense of self, and connection to a supervisor who can provide a recommendation and reference for them in the future.
At TPZ we are filling the social capital gap for our young people by connecting them directly to internship opportunities, and supporting them through these experiences. Equally important, we are solving for the fact that, as the Brookings Institute reports, “Unemployment is typically higher among Black and Latino or Hispanic young people: In 2019 (that is, preCOVID-19), unemployment was 20.7% for Black teens, 15.4% for Latino or Hispanic teens, 11.7% for white teens, and 8.2% for Asian American teens.” As over 90% of TPZ students identify as Black, Latino or Hispanic, our work connecting our students to meaningful internships with local, supportive businesses provides a critical and essential stepping stone for students to set them on a path for economic opportunity.