Instead of sleeping away the summer, students can spend their free time by interning with companies and working on bulking up their resumes.
Summer internships are an option for students to gain experience in their fields of study and to make connections in the business world. The University of Memphis offers multiple opportunities for students to have hands-on work with companies and people who relate to their major. Students can go to professors or career services and learn about what U of M has to offer.
Matthew McBride, a junior civil engineering major at the U of M, said he has done summer internships in 2016 and 2017 and thinks it helped him in his major and in his “real-world” experience.
“I think they benefitted me from one aspect of just the experience,” McBride said. “People say that — but the experience of actually seeing a possibility of what you’ll be doing once you’re out of school, I think that was the biggest thing.”
McBride said he did his first internship at Spirco Manufacturing, a metal building company, where he was an engineering assistant who helped workers and clients.
“Basically, my main task was to do design input, get contracts from the customers and design buildings on software,” McBride said. “My dad works there, he’s a fabricator, and he kind of brought me in the door, and I did the rest.”
Jake Hopkins, a senior marketing major at the U of M, said he found out about an internship by filming a performance at the Levitt Shell.
“I filmed at the Levitt Shell for the school actually,” Hopkins said. “There was a performance that was put on by the U of M, and I met the head of all the video stuff there.” “We ended up exchanging emails and after going back and forth through email, he said to come work for the concert series.”
Hopkins said the application process took two to three weeks, and the whole task was worth it.
“It applied to my major because I’ve been doing a lot of video marketing and creative media marketing,” Hopkins said. “Getting more experience with a camera and editing overall contributes towards sales and marketing. It was very beneficial.”
Ibrahim Elayan, a senior biomedical engineering major at the U of M, said he completed an internship last summer he found out about through his professor.
“I got it through my professor who I did research studies with,” Elayan said. “He informed me of an internship opportunity, and he recommended me to do it. I applied for it, and then I got it.”
Elayan said he interned at the research center at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, where he worked in the dental area testing stem cell growth for dental fillings. He said this was a good connection for his field of study.
“Getting opportunities in research is very helpful for building my resume, and in engineering you need to have a well-built resume because there’s a lot of competition out there,” Elayan said. “On a resume, what makes you unique are the opportunities and experiences that you did while you’re in undergrad.”
Ibrahim Elayan is a senior biomedical engineering major, and interns at University of Tennessee Health Science Center doing research. Elayan did another internship in summer of 2017 at UTHSC, where he tested stem cells for dental fillings.
