Baruch College should include more paid internships in their curricula so students can gain more meaningful professional experience throughout their time enrolled.
While Baruch has invested in career and internship opportunities for business students, humanities students have often had fewer opportunities to gain experience in their respective fields.
Students in the Zicklin School of Business have access to multiple paid internship programs, including the Zicklin Business Co-Op Program. In this program, students begin by enrolling in a professional development course, then apply for and interview for co-op positions. In their second semester, these students enroll in a full-time co-op experience course, where they work in fields such as accounting, finance, marketing and more.
This Zicklin program demonstrates how Baruch can make professional experience part of a student’s academic path rather than something they must always seek on their own.
Students interested in the humanities, such as English, journalism, art and history, have access to similar opportunities, but on a far more limited scale.
Every spring, if funding allows, the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences offers the course
ENG 3860: Essentials of Publishing. This course places students in an internship at a publishing house where they work for 10 hours a week while attending weekly seminars. At the end of the course, they receive a paid stipend to support the time and work they completed throughout the internship.
If courses like these were available more, there would be greater opportunities for students who want a career in humanities to obtain paid work experience.
The benefits of this paid experience go beyond just providing students with more to fill their resumes.
A 2023 National Association of Colleges and Employers study revealed that students who have had paid internships receive more job offers in comparison to those who participated in unpaid internships, with paid interns averaging 1.4 job offers and unpaid interns averaging 0.9.
