Higher Ed

This week our intern, Kelsey, gives some advice on how to prepare for an internship interview:

Though interviews can be a very scary and nerve-racking process, there are many ways to prepare in order to ease into the process.

• Be prepared to tell your potential employer about yourself! Employers are usually looking for a brief summary about your educational and professional background; try and make connections between your background and the position you are hoping to obtain.
• Making connections can prepare you for questions about why you would want to intern/train in the place of your choice. Try focusing on a few crucial responsibilities that are interesting to you, or highlighting which aspects of the company you find appealing or beneficial to the development of your professional background is helpful.
• Do your research! Though you may not have a lot of experience in your specified field, make sure you are up-to-date with the recent trends in your field. It is also important to research the organization/company you are applying to. While you do not need to know everything about the company or organization, it is important to know the basics such as their mission, when and how they came to be, the staff, etc.
•  Discuss your skills background. It is important to know what skills are required. Referring to these said skills and connecting them to your background will not only aid the employer in knowing what skills you already possess, but also what you will need to be taught and how you will need to be trained. Remember, an internship is a learning process. It is also important to discuss your qualifications, including your educational background, and personal characteristics, for example, hardworking, motivated, etc.
•  What are your goals for the future?  Employers usually would like to know how the position you are applying is best suited for your future in your field of study. This shows the employer that you are motivated to learn and work hard throughout your time in this position. How will this position help you achieve your goal(s)?

For 20 years, Brown’s Royce fellows have set out on carefully planned independent research projects across the world – but the discoveries that greet them aren’t always what they expect. 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – When Caitie Whelan trekked to India in the summer of 2006, her goals had been clearly articulated in her successful Royce Fellowship application: she wanted to work with the Merasi, a community of marginalized lower-caste musicians in rural India who live in extreme poverty, to create an archive of their 38-generation-old folk music.

But as she traveled the hot, dusty roads of the Thar Desert, stopping in dung huts to talk to the Merasi people about their musical ambitions over cups of hot tea, she came to realize that preserving their music was only part of their hopes. What the Merasi desired above all, she recalls, was not an archive of their history but a provision for their future: education for their children, many of whom had never attended school.

Click to read more…

PROVIDENCE – A new study by the National Student Clearinghouse looked at the ways students achieve a college degree.

It found that the overall six-year completion rate for first-time, degree-seeking college students who first enrolled in 2008 was 55 percent, including 13 percent who finished at an institution other than where they started.

The total completion rates for students who started at each of the three largest institution categories ranged from 39.1 percent for students who started at two‐year public institutions to 62.8 percent for those who started at four‐year public institutions and 73.6 percent for students who started at four‐year private nonprofit institutions.

Click to read more …