The Global Internship program infosession event was held on March 7, to promote the program and the benefits of interning abroad.

For students who are looking to go abroad and advance their education and career, the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD) joins the Global Internship program in order to gain an immersive international experience.

Zaid Ghori, Director of Special International Programs, was one of several coordinators helped by Regina Stanback-Stroud, President of Skyline College through providing the President’s Innovation Fund.

The desired internship locations are picked by the students, who have to first go through the application process.

The students have to specify what major they are in to determine what internship they want to focus on. Later, they are interviewed by Stephanie Wells, the program services coordinator, who determines who’s accepted into the program based on the requirements. Lastly, they are advised by Chris McKenzie, an Academic Internship Council (AIC) Director, on what the students want out of the program. McKenzie puts students through rigorous sessions to prepare for an interview with companies at the students’ preferred destination.

The aim of the interviews are to allow the student the opportunity to decide what they hope to obtain from the internship abroad experience and assist them in choosing the right location.

McKenzie helped promote the program at Skyline Community College, but all students in the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD) are allowed to apply.

“This is another option for students,” says McKenzie.

He further explained that AIC has two philosophies when it comes to partnering with Skyline College: adapting to meet the unique needs of the college and to keep a student-centric approach. The student-centric approach is a way of communicating with student applicants in such a way that they don’t feel too overwhelmed with the process of applying to the internship abroad program. This is done by mentoring students and working closely with Ghori and Wells and Lavinia Zanassi, the Life and Career Planning Counselor in order to help the applicants succeed.

“This is a whole new experience because we are actually interning with a company abroad (and) gaining work experience,” McKenzie stated.

The internship program that Skyline College is following has eight locations that were picked out of 15 cities. The cities that are featured are San Francisco, New York, Prague, Singapore, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Santiago and Dublin. All programs except one begin on June 9 and end on Aug. 4, concluding two months of an unpaid internship that will be worth three college credits.

“We picked these destinations because we wanted a diverse picking from each part of the world,” explains Zaid. “Also we have to keep in mind that we did not want to overwhelm students with 15 available locations so we did eight.”

Although it is a pilot program for the 2017-2018 academic year, Ghori and Wells have been in the process of giving a presentation to more investors in hopes of getting more investments for the program.

Ghori elaborated that the Global Internship Program has more funding in terms of financial aid, including grants from SMCCCD, and scholarships specifically for studying abroad. Because Skyline College is the first community college of the district to participate in this program, they have received more funding towards the program.

“You see, since the internship program is new there are more funding for student grants to go abroad compared to doing the semester abroad programs such as Italy and London,” Ghori said.

Wells had explained during the presentation that the program was affordable and worth the work.

“Normally our study abroad programs might be where you’re taking classes in another country for three months or a short term summer program where you’re taking one class,” Wells said. “It is a slightly more immersive program than some of our study abroad programs because you are immersing yourself in a real work culture so you’re gaining those skills that are really great on a resume and on your job application.”