“Why not change the world?” is the challenge Rensselaer gives to its students when they are enrolled to make them work their hardest and strive their highest. However, why not see how RPI alumni have changed the world and how did they respond to that challenge, and how can we learn from the paths they have paved for us? The answer is through externships.
An externship gives current students the opportunity to shadow or visit Rensselaer alumni who are putting their degrees to use in the field. The program was proposed to give all students a chance to have a peek at the work force without having to commit to a whole summer internship or co-op.
This is no revolutionary idea; there actually once was an externship program in the 1980s through the Career Development Center. That Career Externships program later evolved into the current CDC’s program of Pathways.
The Pathway Program is the pairing of an alumnus and a student in hopes that an advising, mentoring, or externship relationship come out of it. This system gives great flexibility in the level of contact and commitment given by both the alumnus and student. According to Tom Tarantelli, director of the CDC, programs like Pathways are not just click and go; a lot of work goes into the programs.
Pathway has been around for years and usually sees on average 100-120 matches of students with alumni per year. The renewed vigor and spark of externships, however, is increasing those matches. The reason the program has grown and the reason why the CDC is excited about externships is because of the student support and interest it is showing.
Grand Marshal Max Yates ’06 and the Student Senate began discussing the idea of externships and how to better incorporate the idea into the CDC’s Pathways program. This wasn’t a Senate initiative, but more of an expansion of the CDC’s program catalyzed by the Senate. The CDC, in response, worked with Student Senate Liaison Lindsay Denton ’06, and the RPI Alumni Relations office. Pathways was agreed to be used as the main program out of which to run externships to give flexibility but to also incorporate new knowledge.
According to Tarantelli, students who are interested can go to the Pathways section of the CDC website, look through the alumni database and find alumni they are interested in talking to. Then students go to the CDC and the staff there will work with them to make sure they are matched to the best possible alumnus, highlight the alumnus, and spread out the student contacts among the alumnus in the database.
However, if a student can’t find an alumni to match their needs, they can contact the CDC who will in turn work with alumni relations to find a suitable alumni.
These new efforts in expansion have especially fostered more links with offices on campus and in the industrial world that are not currently in Pathways, which gives even more possibilities for growth.
This program does not only rest on the shoulders of the CDC. The CDC serves as an interface between students and alumni; what the CDC needs is partnerships between students, faculty, and alumni for the program to work. Externships would be a wonderful advising tool and a good way for students to talk to people out in industry. It would also help advising by letting student’s manage their own careers, as explained by Tarantelli.
Currently there are over 3,000 alumni in the database. Tarantelli sees an increase in input from students, more involvement from alumni and even more matches taking place each year.
The director also pointed out that this is a wonderful program for freshman to take part in. It would give them the ability to be linked to an alumnus, learn about their major and what they can potentially do with it one day.
In addition to that, four years spent with one alumnus can blossom into a relationship. It can start as an advising relationship of a few e-mails and phone calls back and forth, to a mentoring relationship where the alumni and student have serious contact and involvement in classes, future, and jobs, and finally into an externship where the student has the ability to visit or shadow that professional, and maybe one day even get a job. Which is what the CDC wants to ultimately accomplish.
Externships could also be beneficial for graduate students as well. The graduate’s job market is equal or more specific in networking and an externship would allow them to meet with professionals in their fields, work with Ph.D.’s and eventually leads to internships and jobs.
Students can have as many alumni contacts they want, especially since the industries from majors vary so much, and in turn can lead to varied levels of relationships. All the alumni in the database choose to be a resource for students.
This is not a one time try in response to the student government’s interest, Rensselaer Alumni Association President Bob Forman has been working with the CDC and with the Pathways program for over twenty years, and the difference now is the increased student involvement. Tarantelli said, “I don’t believe in the saying, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ We need to work at it.”
In conjunction with this and increased student involvement in the program, students plant the seed by letting the CDC know what their needs are which alerts CDC into where they have to go and what they have to do to allow this program to grown.
Right now the biggest part of the program that needs to be worked on is getting the word out and getting students and faculty informed and involved. This program is a resource for faculty to refer students to, and it is important for students to know what an RPI degree can do for you, according to Tarantelli. He also believes, “Meeting with alumni can open student’s eyes and show them you can be whatever you want to be.”
