Principal Investigator Sherwin Greenblatt
Co-investigator Elena J Byrne
Project Website http://alum.mit.edu/externships
Participating in the Student/Alumni Externship Program connects current students with alumni in their workplaces around the world during MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP) January 5-30, 2009. These are short-term opportunities with long-term benefits are offered in a wide variety of fields. Students may collaborate on research, laboratory work, data analysis, software development, or other project that will provide a learning opportunity while meeting a workplace need.
The Externship Program increases student awareness about opportunities in your field, introduces you to potential summer interns and future employees, builds satisfying and lasting mentor relationships, and reconnects you with MIT and the student experience.
The duration of externships can be one week to the entire length of IAP, depending on sponsor needs. Alumni sponsors offer externships at companies, start-ups, labs, and universities primarily in the Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco areas but other U.S. and international cities as well.
The Externship Program is free to participating alumni sponsors. Housing and transportation are the responsibility of the extern; some sponsors do generously provide a stipend, housing, or transportation assistance.
Many students have said that the Externship Program is the most important service that the Alumni Association provides and that it affects their career decisions. Alumni report that it is personally satisfying to help an MIT student with his or her career, to get a chance to spend time with a current student, and to provide service to both their company and a student at the same time.
Externs may collaborate on a wide range of projects. Externs engage in research, laboratory work, data analysis or software development. Some participate in project planning and brainstorming sessions.
The Externship Program can give these opportunities: (*) bring the best and brightest MIT students into a company,(*) increase student awareness about opportunities in a specific field,(*) gain access to potential summer interns or future employees,(*) build mutually satisfying and long-lasting mentoring relationships, and(*) reconnect with MIT and the student experience.
Since 1998, the Externship Program has matched over 1,600 students with alumni. As a result, countless relationships have developed, hundreds of future summer interns and employees have been identified, and all the students have made progress in their career development. This program, unique to MIT, has connected students to companies large and small, start-ups and Fortune 500s. The opportunities are as diverse as MIT alumni and students. Externships have ranged from learning about radiation oncology physics at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), to sitting on a trading desk at J.P. Morgan in New York, to working alongside a senior engineer at NASA in Maryland. brainstorming sessions.