I am a website design & development student at a two-year program. I intend to pair up this degree with a bachelor’s degree and administrative work experience that I already have, as my area is having a problem with employment for young adults and I am trying to become employable in as many fields as I can.
My program requires students to take an internship. I went to my school’s internship advisor and he really didn’t help me much. He basically told me that I am on my own for finding an internship with a company or take a freelance designer approach and get paired up with an instructor as a mentor.
I only have about a month to find an internship for the summer before course registration and I am on a tight graduation deadline so I have to do it during summer term. In my area, I have found only a few internship opportunities that would meet program requirements and many of these internships want software or application development skills, which my program doesn’t offer in courses. Basically, I don’t hold a candle to someone in a four-year computer science program. Additionally, I have contacted several reputable companies that do website design/development in my area to see if they might offer internships in the summer and all of them responded that they do not take interns for my field. One HR representative for one of these companies even e-mailed me back, saying that I might have a hard time finding a website design/development internship in the area because the field is mainly self-employed and “no one wants to train their future competition.” The internship advisor also said something similar - that 70% of the field is self-employed, though I have seen varying statistics about this.
Since this is the case, I am wondering if I should contact either a program head or the college dean about this? While taking a freelance approach would not be hard for me to do, it does not match up with my career goals to establish a relationship with a company and hopefully use that relationship to get my foot in the door and find a career that I can move up in over time. It also does not match up with the college’s internship requirements which state that students a) must work on-site in a role that appropriate to their program, and b) must work on-site with a supervisor with professional knowledge of that field. I am also questioning that if it is so difficult to get an internship in this field (at least, in my area), why does my program take this approach and not create some sort of class where students can get freelance experience and have an instructor mentor that class? I am paying money for this internship credit; the school should have a lot more involvement in making sure students actually get an internship that gives them appropriate professional experience for their field.