Do students realize how valuable internships are?

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photo credit: Tim Gouw

Construction Management adjunct professor, Creggan Wagstaff, is a big advocate of UVU. While Wagstaff was studying as a student at UVU, he had an internship every summer between semesters. When asked about how he found those internships, Wagstaff stated “I didn’t find them through the typical UVU channels.” Instead, he had to put in his own efforts to find internship opportunities.

Wagstaff now works for a construction firm who poached him from his first job. He was so valuable that he didn’t even have to apply. All he had to do was make a sexy resume, not graduate from a popular school like most students believe, and companies flocked to him.

A common misconception of UVU is that it is a school that doesn’t lead to prime career opportunities.  This belief started because before UVU was a university, it was a junior college and a trade school, a feeder for BYU transfer students. BYU was the place to go because it had connections to big companies. Recently, however, it has been the other way around. Now students from BYU are transferring to UVU. What has changed?

There is no doubt that UVU has come a long way since it became an accredited university. The student population has grown exponentially in the last 5 years, and it’s looking like it will be the largest college in Utah by the end of the decade. The difference between UVU and BYU is simply the connections the two schools have. For students at BYU, it is likely they will get hooked up with great internships just by going there. At UVU, students might need to be like Wagstaff by going out and talking to people on their own to get internships.

UVU is a great place to get a quality education, and compared to other schools, the classes don’t try to “weed out” students. Even if it isn’t a Harvard or a BYU, students here can be just as competent, if not more resourceful, then those schools. This is because, while the Ivy League schools are trying to survive their classes, UVU Wolverines are actually learning practical course material. UVU students can do more, with less. The students here at UVU might not get as many handouts as places like BYU, but, by simply reaching out, a UVU student can get the same, if not better, internships and jobs as “nicer,” private institutions.

Don’t leave UVU without an internship. Check out UVU’s internship services webpage at: http://www.uvu.edu/internships/.