Summer internships keep students busy

and Jorie Green More students than ever are spending their summers gaining work experience with internships, according to Career Planning and Placement Service counselor Laura Praglin. Communications and marketing career opportunities in particular have expanded, she added. "Given the job market, employers are looking for some practical job experience before a person graduates," Praglin said. "It shows that a person is responsible, that they're ready to hit the ground running." Praglin also reported that last year, 600 of 625 surveyed University students held internships, and 75 percent received salaries of over $500 a month for their work. But the size of the paycheck may not be all that important in the long run. Praglin said unpaid or low-paying internships still contain one essential benefit -- connections. "An unpaid internship can often lead to something that does pay," she said. "These people that you are working for are the people who can write you great recommendations." But students working in the Philadelphia area said there are short term benefits to internships as well -- no homework. Becoming part of the "real world," may mean more time indoors and less freedom with dress. But it also means stress-free evenings filled with sit-com re-runs, long telephone conversations and in some cases, wild nights out on the town. "A lot of people get to roam the city and go out more than during the year," said Engineering senior Marsha Chan Wai Hong, who interns in the Marketing Department. "When I go out drinking, I wake up with a hangover [and go to work]." Edinburgh University exchange student Andrew Lin, who also has an internship on campus, has discovered a whole new perspective to Bennett Hall while conducting research for English Professor Rita Barnard. Instead of the classrooms, Lin said he finds himself spending much of his time in the English department office in 119 Bennett Hall -- photocopying. But not all interns in Philadelphia have managed to escape textbooks for the summer. Along with a research internship and a part time job at the Biomedical Library, Engineering junior Gabriela Gonzalez is also taking Mathematics 312. She said all of her summer activities are keeping her very busy. "I have free time when I sleep," she said.

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