Richard SiemensTime and time again, students miss the opportunity to do research, participate in co-ops, and gain experience from an internship because the opportunities are poorly communicated. Getting into an internship or co-op can be hard enough. Finding one in the first place shouldn’t be. The University of Alberta has a responsibility to provide accessible and relevant information to students.
Real world experience opportunities for undergraduate students do exist. During Week of Welcome (WoW), students can find booths at the Clubs Fair about the Science Internship Program and volunteer abroad opportunities, among others. There are many programs provided by the university, but the issue is that as soon as WoW is over, the information for said programs becomes difficult to find. Without a QR code from a poster, students have trouble finding websites with relevant information.
When I attempted to search “research opportunities” on the university website, one of the first results that appeared was “find funding opportunities.” After reading through this site, I saw that this is largely irrelevant to new undergraduate students.
Another result was “career opportunities.” Again, that specific link addresses postdoctoral fellowships and faculty positions. It’s not that these resources don’t also matter, but they are confusing to new students navigating the website.
Furthermore, when I searched “co-op opportunities,” I discovered a similar issue where the search results were regarding opportunities for specific programs. For instance, an “Entrepreneurial Co-op” for the faculty of engineering. I could not find a resource that provided general information on co-ops for all faculties.
The university could simply have a general page to explain how student research and co-ops work. If it did, undergraduate students would better understand the process and how to access the opportunities available to them. Arts Work Experience (AWE) already does this for faculty of arts students, so why not do the same for other opportunities?
The website could be an incredible resource, but I also see a more direct opportunity for communication. The U of A has the ability to communicate with mass emails. At the start of the semester, students receive frequent emails about opportunities to volunteer abroad. Often, departments and faculties will mass email enrolled students about open classes or other information. Doing this for co-ops and other opportunities really wouldn’t require much effort.
Emails are an an effective way to communicate, but they also need to be timed correctly. Nobody is thinking about studying abroad with the frenzy of a brand new semester, for example. Along with emails at the start of the semester, continual emails about co-ops and other opportunities would be beneficial. Students could then see the information during calm points in their semester. The university provides excellent, regularly scheduled emails about opportunities to learn abroad. Why not do the same with emails about co-op opportunities?
Student internships, co-ops, and research opportunities equip students with real world skills. Beyond that, they provide businesses with trained staff for the future, and leave new graduates with a network to find their first career-oriented position. By building connections between labs, businesses, and students, new graduates find career placements easier. As the cliché goes, “it is not what you know, but who you know.” The university provides valuable opportunities. But the university has to properly communicate those opportunities for it to be beneficial.
To support student success, students must be presented with opportunities by their institutions. With the right communication, capable students can take full advantage of the opportunities available to them and reach their potential.
