Skyline College has the resources to help you get the internship or work experience that could be the first step towards the career of your dreams.
     “In terms of employment, 70% of employment openings are derived from internships and networking” said Virginia Padron, Skyline’s career center coordinator.
     Interns gain valuable work skills and have the opportunity to make valuable connections. They have an edge over those who have no vocational experience.
     Although Skyline does not run an internship program, it does employ both Padron and Counselor Jacqueline Escobar, who help students find and apply for internships.
     Skyline’s career center has job listings, reference books, and trained staff. Students are free to drop in. It also has computer resources like the Eureka program, which contains descriptions of careers and web links to related sites.
     Escobar, who was an intern herself in the Skyline College career center, said that students who come to see her asked for help finding internships but that few asked for help applying for internships.
     Escobar plans to offer a 0.5 unit class, when the budget permits, to teach the advice she gives to students who see her individually.
     “I advise students to do their homework well and not end up in the wrong company”, Escobar said.
     Escobar said that an applicant should prepare a skill-based resume and a portfolio of past achievements, with pictures or other evidence. He or she should think up questions to ask the employer as well.
     Escobar said that the internet is the worst place to look for internships because of the potentially huge number of applicants for a single job. Instead, she recommends starting out in the career center.
     Some Skyline students end up with internships through other avenues. Science and math students have used the resources of the campus MESA club.
     MESA director Tiffany Reardon gets information on internships from the companies themselves or at conferences like the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science conference.
     At last year’s SACNAS conference, Reardon said that she saw many recruiters looking for students.Reardon said that one MESA member who will be doing an internship in medicine has been invited to share her experience at next year’s SACNAS conference.
     The MESA club, in addition to information about internships, holds seminars and classes on finding work in fields. This year’s class on working in biology was cancelled due to lack of enrollment.
     MESA member Amy Lee got an internship at Genentech. After spending time in the manufacturing branch of that company, she realized that she wanted a different direction. She is now investigating the medical field, so that she can work with people.
     “I’m grateful of the Genentech internship because it guided me or shaped me in to a path that’s right for me,” Lee said.
     Lee feels that community college is the best time to get an internship because it is possible to divide your time between work and school in a way that would be difficult at a four-year school or in a full-time job.
     MESA member David Evans got an internship at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito through the teacher of his honors Biology class. He worked with the parisitologist cataloguing species. He said that the center has already discovered three new species of parasitic worms to science.
     “I got to do the real stuff.” he said. “Real research, real lab, a real situation, and a real project, under the tutelage of a world-renowned scientist.”
     Although Evans knows that parasites are not his field, he is grateful for the experience. He says that the internship helped him to build his job skills and knowledge. He now has a contact in his former boss at the Marine Mammal Center.
     This summer the Skyline Library will be providing internships to two students of Library Science from the City College of San Francisco. The directors of the Library Science programs at the schools met personally to arrange the internship, said Sandra Kirkpatrick, Senior Librarian and Media Technician. In the past more interns have worked at the library, but now there are fewer, which Kirkpatrick attributes to the loss of a program head that sent students there.
     Classes numbered 670 in the catalog are vocational classes and could offer another route to internships. The Site Stewardship Program runs ecological programs at local parks like Fort Funston relies on interns. Ryan Jones, who coordinates the education and outreach branch of the program said that quite a few of his interns come from community college.
     “An internship is a learning experience.” he said.
     Jones is a former intern himself. Jones said that many of the students who work for the program go back to school for higher degrees. He said that about one-half of his interns end up working in the Natural Resources field, and that many get jobs in the Park service.
     Community college students should take advantage of the resources of their school to find an internship that can get them moving down their own career paths.