How Internships Benefit the Student and the Policy Office

Nine years ago, when I left corporate life to join Utah Valley University (UVU) as its new policy office director, I realized right away that I needed some extra help. Ongoing contract or freelance help would not fit our small budget; but student interns would. I knew from my own college experience that interning in one’s future field builds marketable, real-world skills; I had hired student interns in corporate America, some of whom stayed on after graduation as valued, full-time employees.

While internships are incredibly beneficial to students, they also provide benefits for your office and your institution’s policy process (aside from just being cheap labor, which is definitely a plus). I’ve seen overwhelming positive benefits to both my own office and many others at UVU. Benefits such as:

• Access to innovative ideas and unique perspectives - College students learn about the latest trends in the industry through their coursework, so student interns can bring with them academic and technical knowledge that is useful in your office. Even more importantly, as higher education policy administrators, what our offices do heavily impacts students, and we may be so “deep in the trenches” that we have overlooked how our policies may impact and read to them. Having access to the student perspective is invaluable to this process.
• Decreased turnaround time and increased office productivity - The extra sets of hands can help your office be more productive and prevent it from becoming overburdened by side projects, allowing you and your staff to focus more time and energy on tasks where more advanced expertise is required. And you may be able to offer and complete extra projects and services for both your department and others, because of valuable student interns.
• Enhance your office culture and improve staff morale - Not only does having extra help increase overall staff morale, but an internship program provides an opportunity for your office and staff to connect with students, meet with them, speak with them, and ultimately mentor them, which promotes and fosters vital leadership skills for both mentors and mentees.
• Test drive the talent - An internship program doubles as a recruitment method without recruitment costs. Seeing how interns work will give you a more accurate view of how they would be as full-time staff members. The internship serves as a hands-on training period; the intern to whom you extend a job offer already knows the basics of the job and how your office works.

At the UVU Policy Office, we hire political science interns and editing interns. The political science interns helped us refine our policy research procedures and develop a policy research document template. This service has assisted policy writing committees that did not have the resources or time to conduct their own research. Last year’s political science intern helped us develop metrics we use to assess our office’s effectiveness. 

Our editing interns have helped us improve our policy template, web site, and editorial procedures.  One of those interns, Jennifer Gallagher (whom many of you know from previous conferences) has now been my full-time employee going on two years. Her reputation as an outstanding editor is spreading across our campus. When I get a phone call from a vice president asking for editing assistance on a policy—they don’t ask for me—they ask for Jennifer. Her success as an intern, and now an employee, has improved our office greatly and enhanced its reputation as a service provider.

I am always learning from my student employees. They keep our office fresh and learning—which is the whole point of higher education.