Fort Lauderdale or Fortune 500? For spring break, Pepperdine students can travel, volunteer and now “extern.” The Career Center restructured its spring “externship” program and is now taking sophomore, junior and senior resumes.
The deadline to apply is Oct. 8, and Career Center Office Manager Stephanie Farley says spots are limited.
Farley describes the Pepperdine externship as a short-term, unpaid internship. For one to three days, a student can meet and work with an alumnus from their field of interest.
“It’s more like a job shadow, as opposed to an intern given tasks or getting paid or academic credit,” Farley said. “It can help you choose your major, your minor, where you want to intern in the future or provide an opportunity to network, which is one of the biggest factors in securing a job in the future. The chance to see what a full-time job is like is very valuable.”
Farley handles the student side of the externship program, and Lindsay Coburn, alumni career services coordinator, manages the alumni part. With this division, the Career Center is now trying a different method to recruit participants this year.
“Last year, students would apply with five industries of interest, and Lindsay would recruit alumni based on those five industries,” Farley said. “This went well, but what we decided to try was recruiting all alumni first. Then we started in the summer, recruiting alumni and what we like to call ‘Friends of Pepperdine,’ which are parents or people with close affiliations to the university.”
With this, the two were able to sign up hosts first and plan to have students apply for specific positions. This is also more on track with how other schools with externship programs are functioning. While researching in the summer, Farley and Coburn used Princeton University as a model for the program.
Sophomores, juniors and seniors can apply from Oct. 1 to Oct. 8 online on Career Space. A student can apply for up to five externships but must be willing to commit to any of those if selected.
There are spots available throughout the country, with most in the Los Angeles area.
Students are responsible for their travel costs, so the spring break externship would depend on individual resources and priorities.
Last year, the Career Center noticed that most students in the externship program were applying in their hometowns. Farley said this gave them the chance to see family, job shadow for one to three days and hang out with friends the rest of the time.
The Career Center believes the best time to perform an externship is as a sophomore. For anyone feeling pressured to choose his or her major, an externship offers more insight into the job market than a committed internship or specific class would.
This year, sophomores can also apply for a scholarship to cover their travel costs, similar to the Randall Internship Scholarship, which reimburses commuter interns with up to $500.
