Caribbean vacation or office cubicle?

Though still in the midst of midterms, Tufts students are already longing for their next vacation from classes. Many are planning to spend the winter holidays at home with family and friends, but others see the month-long vacation as an opportunity to "get ahead" in the real world. One way to do so is to apply for a "winternship," which can provide students with an opportunity to establish professional contacts and gain insight as to whether or not they are interested in a particular field.

A winternship is a brief internship experience that takes place over winter break. This year, most winterships will take place during the week of Jan. 6 to Jan. 10, 2003, although there is some variation in the time commitment based on the needs of the sponsors.

They are intended to allow students to shadow a working professional and sometimes even to work closely with that person on a particular project. Most sponsors are Tufts alums who have volunteered to participate in the program.

While the majority of winternships are based in Boston, New York and Washington, DC, Tufts students have also worked with Career Services to establish programs as far away from campus as Portland, OR. In the past, several internships have also been set up abroad for international students.

Despite the programs good intentions, the question remains: is five days ample time for a college student to determine whether he or she wants a given job or a job in a particular field?

"I think it depends on the quality of time, not the quantity [spent working at a winternship]," sophomore Nina Soares said. "Obviously, the more time you spend, the more you will become familiar with that field."

At an informational meeting about the winternship program on Thursday, Oct. 4, Jonathan Kaplan, Assistant Director of Career Services, emphasized the growing importance of networking in today's competitive job market. At the meeting, Kaplan stressed that a wide variety of opportunities is available in the winternship program, allowing students with different interests to get involved.

"[Students] have accompanied sponsors on calls to clients, attended court, observed surgeries, and followed reporters on their beat," he said. "Others have created client databases, assisted with marketing projects, taken notes at US Senate hearings and edited video clips for promotional films."

The success that the winternship program has experienced in the past couple years can be seen in the increase in student participation. Last year, there were approximately one hundred participants, a thirty percent increase from the previous year.

Regardless of the programs benefits, however, some students believe that the work experience is not worth the inconvenience of having winter vacation cut short.

"I like to spend time with my family and friends over winter break, sophomore Ben Hagopian said. "The winternship program is offered at a very inconvenient time."

Sophomore Talia Gracer is from California, and winter break is the only extended period of time during the school year that she can spend time at home with her family. "As a pre-med student, I know that experience in the medical field is extremely important, but offering amazing internships during the few times during the school year when college students generally see their families [prevents me from making] the best use of these opportunities," Gracer said.

In addition to its brevity, another way that the winternship program defers from a normal internship is that the application process places little importance on the amount of prior experience one has in a field. For this reason, a winternship can provide a means to break into a field and to begin to establish professional contacts.

Vivian Chan, a senior majoring in Asian Studies, has had two valuable internship experiences in past summers, but wants to use the winternship program to explore a new field. "I'm thinking about applying to a winternship in advertising," Chan said. "I've always been interested in communication, so I just want to see what it's about and if I want to go into it."

Seniors with little previous work experience are more optimistic than underclassmen about the potential benefits of participating in a winternship program, perhaps because they need the exposure more then the younger students.

Jake Berman, a senior, plans to apply for a winternship in hopes of becoming a more competitive applicant to admissions officers at graduate schools. "The way the job market is going right now, a lot more people are applying to grad school," Berman said. "So I want to do as much as I can this year to make my application stand out."

Berman also expressed a fear shared by many seniors of getting an advanced degree in a field in which he is not certain he is interested. "I think that there are a lot of seniors who don't feel comfortable applying to grad school at this point because they are afraid that they won't end up wanting to [use] that degree in a career," he said.

Although seniors may use the winternship program as one of their last opportunities to gain further experience before breaking into the "real world," the program is designed for students of every class year. "While the objective of a senior may be different from that of a first-year student, the winternship program is an excellent way for all students to explore career options," Kaplan said.

At this time, new postings are still being added to Tufts' online winternship database. Kaplan said that the postings should be almost completed by the end of this week, making now the best time to apply.

In an effort to increase job experience opportunities, the program does not limited students to those winterships that are presented on the website. If a student is interested in exploring options in a geographic area or field that is not currently an option, it is possible to work with Career Services to create one's own winternship through Tufts alumni connections.

All applications are due on Nov. 7 to the Career Services office in Dowling Hall. The selection committee will aim to provide a winternship for all applicants. "Our goal is to offer placement to as many students as possible," Kaplan said.