Management students gain hands-on experience
Waikato management students are trying out corporate life as part of their degree.
Grace Ng has got a foot on the corporate ladder before even graduating – she’s one of 80 interns taking a management internship paper run through the University of Waikato.
She completed her internship with Fonterra at the end of last summer, and used skills from her conjoint management and computer science degree to create a tool to monitor rule-following in accounting journals.
“You’re actually creating something that’s useful and will be used,” she said.
It gave her a taste of the real world where project requirements can change several times, as opposed to the more static parameters of university assignments.
Fellow intern Kristie Boyd created a centralised filing database for Fonterra and its associated companies, and agreed on the value of the practical experience.
“I got to see where I would fit,” she said.“Uni just tells you but the internship shows you.”
All three of the 2013 Fonterra interns have secured graduate roles: Miss Ng and Miss Boyd outside the firm, and Tommy Fu was employed by the dairy giant.
Waikato Management School interns from the University of Waikato are in their final year of a management degree, and are matched with companies for project work relating to their majors.
The interns’ taste of working life can range from public relations campaigns for healthcare companies to bond portfolio research, and the companies from not-for-profit organisations to large corporates like Mainfreight, both in New Zealand and overseas.
Associate academic dean of the Management School John Tressler said the programme was evidence of how the role of business schools had changed over time to focus on preparing students for the job market.
“We’re still expected to graduate… people that know lots about their subjects… but now we’re expected to turn out graduates that are work-ready, that are professionals.”
And internship-style experience is a bonus in employers’ eyes, especially when competition for jobs is high.
A Careers NZ assessment of the labour market in March this year said that competition could disadvantage young people, because employers would have more, experienced candidates to choose from.
And potential employers want to talk about the internship projects – not university – in interviews, according to interns who presented at a recent showcase evening at the university.
But they enjoyed the experience for other reasons, too.
Blair Holmes is a marketing and strategy major and is near the end of a 150-hour, part-time internship with Hamilton-based CLIMsystems, which interested him for a simple reason.
“I saw an opportunity to change the firm.”
He put knowledge from his university studies into practice on a marketing project for the climate change software company: conducting competitive analyses and contacting potential clients.
Though his project focussed on just one of the company’s products, he felt he could make a difference.
And the companies taking on interns are also seeing the benefits.
Co-founder and chief executive of textbook producer Biozone International Ltd Richard Allan took on three interns in 2013, and said he would highly recommend the programme to employers.
“I think it’s just a win-win situation, for the student, the company itself, and the management school,” he said.
“You have an opportunity to give [the interns] projects that require a lot of focus.”
Waikato Management School interns must meet certain criteria, including a minimum B+ grade average, and convenor Glyndwr Jones said he looked for students who were involved in extra-curricular activities, or had “the X-factor.”
The programme has been running since 2010, when there were six interns.
In 2013, the total will be approximately 80.
The programme is run as a 400 or 500-level paper, and students spend 150 hours working on the project part-time within the organisation.
