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Summer 2010 International Internship Opportunities

Your summer in Dublin, Ireland offers you the possibility to combine an internship with the four-week Ireland Summer Program. At this time, there is no guarantee that when you sign up for the four-week program, that you will be offered an internship opportunity, but read further down below about internship selection. The itinerary for the four-week program will have you departing June 16 and finishing up on July 17. If you were offered an internship, you would stay another four weeks from July 19 – August 13. Earn 3 internship cr hrs (optional) and 6 cr hrs (required) from these summer opportunities--(9 hours total).

Irish Course Team Project with Local Entrepreneur: The summer program in Dublin (June 16 – July 17) will feature a marketing course by an MU professor and an entrepreneurship course with a student team project working for a local Dublin social entrepreneur. Dr. Bill Carner (TCOB marketing department) will teach a marketing course about current international issues. Dr. Denise Crossan (Trinity College Dublin) will teach the social entrepreneurship course and will emphasize using an experiential approach and course to understand the foundation ideas of social entrepreneurship. Each week the Irish course will have a long class period, Monday or Tuesday (depending on the schedule) and the remainder of the week the student team will have free and flexible time to work on the team entrepreneurship project.

Internship Possibility: (July 19 – Aug 13). The Irish class project has the potential to continue as a four-week internship after the four-week program. We will try to only recruit entrepreneurs who would have a possible interest in a continued student internship position (no-pay). Keep in mind, that the internship opportunity is not guaranteed, for the simple reason that the entrepreneur does not know you yet and has not seen your work ethic, behaviors, attitude, and, possibly the entrepreneur’s situation could change unpredictably. Here is what seems reasonable that could possibly happen. You would apply to the social entrepreneur to stay on for four additional weeks after the program. Your best chances would be to ask for no pay, primarily because social entrepreneurs have very tight budgets and most likely would have very little to no money to pay any salary. OK, so why would the entrepreneur want to “keep” you, and have you continue working for him/her? Most likely, it would be because you would be working hard and showing a high motivation to produce a good group project. The entrepreneur would be impressed with your dedication to his/her business and project. Both of you would believe that each could be in a win-win situation by having you stay on from mid-July to mid-August: The entrepreneur wins by having a useful and productive person helping out, and you win by gaining more experience in dealing with new international business situations, transactions, and problem-solving.

Selection Process Any student participating in the four-week Ireland summer program would be eligible to apply for an internship after the program. The social entrepreneur will actually be doing the selection. You will have to apply to the entrepreneur just as if you were applying for a job with the company. The acceptance is entirely the choice of the entrepreneur to ask you to stay on for an additional four weeks. This is the first summer that this opportunity has been able to be offered in our Ireland summer business program. There are still many questions for which we do not have answers at this time. As we learn more from our Irish partner at Trinity and from her discussions with the social entrepreneurs, we will convey this information to you during the spring semester.

Internship Experience on your Resume: Assuming that the above scenario works out for you, you could show this experience as an eight-week internship, the first four weeks under the guidance and mentoring of the Irish professor along with the assistance of the MU marketing professor, and the second four weeks working independently, on your own with the entrepreneur. This internship in an Irish company will provide you with a wonderful, meaningful, and exceptional experience to note on your resume. You would have many stories and examples that you would be able to convey and Summer 2010 International Internship Opportunities 2 explain to a job recruiter about your new competencies (the following are only possible examples: your actual experiences will depend upon the actual company you will work for):

• Working in a new and diverse culture,
• Dealing with uncertainties in that culture,
• Increasing your ability to plan and organize tasks and events,
• Solving problems for customers and suppliers,
• Conducting research with people, on the internet, and other database sources, and
• Possibly making professional group presentations in a real company setting.

Job interviews are increasingly emphasizing behavioral situations and how you would deal with or have dealt with job-related scenarios. The Trulaske College of Business is attempting to prepare you as much as possible to be successful with this new job interview approach. Your international internship can offer you many new and different kinds of behavioral situations in a new and different culture. Also, it can help you take that next step in preparing you for a more successful job interview, to stand out much differently from other students who have not worked in an international setting. You will be able to demonstrate broader global exposure and business experiences, explain your responsibilities, your work activities, your problem solving, and especially the results that you will have achieved in your internship setting--especially in this new culture and in your dealings with international and cultural uncertainty. Recruiters will be very interested in what you have experienced and learned about different social and business customs, based on your interactions with Irish people in different business roles and responsibilities. It all adds up to offering you unusual and outstanding opportunities to have real job-related experiences to explain during your interviews, rather than responding to the recruiters’ hypothetical situations in which you have no experience.

Booking Your Flight Itinerary: How should you deal with the question of when to book your return flight back to the States? It is not easy at this time, because we will not have any firm commitment by the entrepreneurs on having you stay on for the internship, until you have begun your course project with them in the summer. For the time being, plan to wait until March and the spring predeparture course. We may have more information to make it easier for summer travel planning. If the social entrepreneur wants to wait until after the program, then it would all depend on you and the confidence you have in yourself to perform with enough quality to impress the entrepreneur and get offered the opportunity to stay on for four additional weeks. Two options seem possible:

• Option #1: Book return after four-week program finishes (plus travel if you would plan to travel more). If you get accepted to stay another four weeks, then think of the additional cost to change the ticket until August as being the cost of the internship opportunity.
• If you are a risk taker and believe that you will get an offer, then book your return ticket for mid-August. Assuming that you would get the internship opportunity, you would not pay anything extra. However, IF you did not get an offer to stay, then your only risk is that you would pay an additional $200-$300 to rebook your ticket for mid-July.

This is the first year for this kind of opportunity, so there is no easy solution to this question until both the Irish and TCOB have had some experience with this kind of program and the MU students in Ireland.

Lodging and Food Expenses: Multiple lodging opportunities are available to choose from in Dublin: Hostels, Trinity dormitory, Griffith College dormitory. The lodging arrangements will be clarified in March of the spring semester, such as whom to contact and making your own reservations for the internship period. The budget table below shows the estimated lodging and food cost breakdown. The additional cost for lodging would be approximately 22 Euros/day ($33) and food cost, estimated at 25 Euros/day ($37). The food cost is a variable that would depend upon what you would want to do-- use the dormitory kitchen associated with your suite or eat out in restaurants all the time. The program fee covers the cost that the TCOB study abroad program incurs to set up the internship and finalize the arrangements for you in Ireland. You will want to plan $500 - $1,000 for extra costs (these would be highly variable), such as phone, laundry, local transportation, weekend travel, socializing, etc. For example, a phone would be 40-50 Euros plus the SIM card for 30 Euros. Laundry would be about 7-10 Euros per week, and transportation would be 40 Euros for a one-month bus pass. We will make more information available to you during March in the spring semester, about lodging and getting around Dublin. These costs are estimates and also, subject to fluctuating exchange rates.

The following costs are only estimates (except the program fee) and will depend on your particular situation, wants, and needs.

• The program fee will be an additional charge that will be applied to your student account. This fee covers the cost that the TCOB study abroad program incurs to set up and manage the internship for you in Dublin.
• You may want to plan an additional $500 to $1,000 for travel, socializing, and unexpected opportunities during your internship.
• The lodging is assuming dormitory stay at Griffith College.
• Plan for the additional MU tuition cost if you sign up for three hours of internship credit.
• The actual exchange rate will vary and may be more or less than shown in this example.