For students of the humanities, \paid internships"" can be a nearly oxymoronic phrase-it is no wonder UW-Madison competition for them is so fierce.
A few students receive internships each year, while other students search for different means to support their college lifestyles and enrich their educational experiences.
Currently, four on-campus communications jobs exist on the UW-Madison Job Center website, a contrast to the 25 combined positions offering on-campus work in agriculture and animals, computers, healthcare/medical and science areas.
This discrepancy is no accident, according to UW-Madison Director of Student Employment Programs Tim Putzier.
""For the most part, those types of positions that are more popular with the students don't have to advertise,"" Putzier said. ""They have enough people stopping by the office or knocking on the door, [finding out] by word of mouth.""
Putzier explained that a large number of UW-Madison undergraduates see the communications positions, making them highly coveted and thus more difficult to obtain.
""That's the job market we live in, in Madison,"" Putzier said.
Although the market and competition may be stiff, the skill requirements of interns or student employees differ between disciplines.
Hourly student workers in scientific laboratories often wash lab dishes, perform routine preparations for experiments and gain knowledge of technical skills within the lab, said UW-Madison department of plant pathology Professor Jo Handelsman.
""If our student hourlies disappeared, our lab would come to a screeching halt,"" Handelsman said.
Technical skills are an important focus of laboratory jobs and more complex or higher paying jobs may require more applied study to a specific area, said Erica Salkin, Student Services Coordinator for the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
""I'm not saying that humanities internships are fluff or anything like that-you need solid writing skills for them,"" Salkin said. ""But you don't have to be a journalism major to pursue a journalism internship.""
This question of accessibility comes into play in other job-hunting situations.
""I don't necessarily know if they [paid student jobs] are as well-publicized as they could be,"" said UW-Madison sophomore Brad Kasavana, who works as a paid worker in a department of plant pathology laboratory and is currently working on an independent research project. ""It was kind of hard for me to find my job.""
Another cause for this discrepancy between humanities internship experiences and science-related opportunities may be the sheer amount of money available to an organization.
Science internships might receive grants or larger budgets, Salkin said.
For instance, the American Red Cross is offering a communications internship right now, ""but they can't afford to pay,"" Salkin said.
Apart from discipline-oriented internships and employment, students can also gain experience in their classes.
Students in Biology 152, in which Kasavana is enrolled, have the opportunity to work on independent, semester-long research projects.
""The system's pretty well set up for us,"" Kasavana said.
""I think [lab employment here] is a great resume builder because it gets you experience in an actual federal facility and the set-up of a lab,"" said Christy Davidson, a research technician at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center.
