075 (Summer 1983): 13-15
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INTERNSHIPS FOR ENGLISH MAJORS: A NEW DIMENSION FOR THE HUMANITIES
Susanne Garvey
AT COLLEGES and universities throughout the country, undergraduates have for over a decade been questioning the value of B.A. degrees in English. Of late many have been voicing their anxieties about the practicality and marketability of the degree, and record numbers of them have felt compelled to drop the major despite their professed interest in English language and literature. Though it is certainly to nobody's liking, it is also to nobody's surprise that English department enrollments have been decreasing even out of proportion to the general decline in the college-age population. English departments, along with history, philosophy, and foreign language departments, will probably continue to lose students over the next decade unless they can demonstrate that majoring in one of the humanities disciplines can offer something more concrete than intellectual challenge and fulfillment. Unfortunately, many humanities faculty themselves are not fully aware of how their disciplines prepare young adults to enter fields other than the teaching profession.
In response to this crisis of confidence, English faculty at a number of institutions have over the past five years made curricular changes that have revitalized their programs. One such change that has successfully taken hold in a handful of English departments (including Kalamazoo's and Emory's) is the awarding of college credit for substantive work experiences—or internships. J. Paul Hunter, writing in the MLA's Profession 80 (“Facing the Eighties,” pp. 19), describes the business and public service internships for English majors at Emory University as a bridge between students' academic studies and the nonacademic world. Hunter, English department chair at Emory, instituted the program after noticing that graduating seniors “had so little sense of what they had to offer, so little notion that their major had prepared them for life in any resonant or practical way” (p. 3). The internship program proved so successful that the department now finds internships for about one third of its majors. According to Hunter, the program has given English majors confidence in their professional skills and has exposed them to the richness and complexity of the world outside academe. Moreover, the cooperative relations among the academic, business, and public service worlds “can signal healthier attitudes and eventuate in greater receptivity toward humanists in the communities of business, industry, and government” (p. 3).
While English faculty in departments such as Emory's understand the importance of providing their students with a link between the classroom and the world of work, most faculty remain uncomfortable with the concept of experiential education and with the application of the humanities degree outside academe. Even when they find the internship idea compelling, they often lack the ties with the business and government sectors that would make it relatively simple for them to arrange and monitor internships for their students.
This general absence of internship programs in English departments reflects and reinforces a common assumption that the public and private sectors have little use for the skills of the English graduate. Contrary to this belief, there is growing evidence that corporations and the public sector value humanities graduates for their managerial, communication, and leadership skills and for their ability to make long-term contributions in growth and productivity. Robert E. Beck's 1981 report 1 on AT&038;T's longitudinal study of the success rate of its managers articulates this receptivity, while the corporate world's disaffection with the current crop of often narrow-thinking M.B.A. graduates suggests an increasing uneasiness about overreliance on highly specialized degrees.
Internships can be a key element in bridging the gap between academic training in the humanities and nonacademic careers. Long before English departments began to show interest in internships, political science departments encouraged their students to intern in the government and in business. These departments discovered that students who completed internships were able to test, challenge, and build on the lessons learned in college and to acquire experience of value to potential employers. Not only did the students mature and gain a realistic perspective on the workings of government and on postgraduate career opportunities, but they also returned to campus with a renewed interest in their studies and exerted a positive effect on other students. As a result, most political science departments today endorse internships for credit, and many actually require them as part of the degree program.
As part of this growing trend, the Washington Center, a nonprofit educational organization, was founded in 1975 to offer an academically strong and cost-effective internship program in Washington, D.C. The organization was conceived as the solution to problems encountered by one large state university as it sought to utilize the rich resources of the nation's capital for its political science students' internships. Many institutions had similar problems, and today hundreds of colleges and universities from all over the country have associated with the center. These institutions can offer juniors and seniors from all disciplines, including English, the opportunity to spend an academic term working full-time in carefully monitored professional positions for academic credit. Organizations that have provided internship placements include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Press Club, National Public Radio, the Federal Communications Commission, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the National Archives, and U.S. Medicine.
In addition to working full-time and participating in a series of evaluations, each student is required to take part once a week in an evening seminar—usually in a subject that complements the internship. The seminars, which range from Investment Banking and Business-Government Relations to Professional Writing and Historic Preservation, are led by public officials, attorneys, and policy analysts. Students are invited to attend a speakers' series—which has featured such prominent Washingtonians as David Broder of the Washington Post , former Senator James Buckley, and Congressman Phil Crane of Illinois. The center also provides housing for its students and sponsors social and cultural activities.
In February 1982 a major grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation enabled the center to increase the number of undergraduate internships and related seminars in the humanities. A range of opportunities now exists for English majors to make a contribution to, and receive training from, business, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Most offices value writing and speaking skills above all else; many would prefer to work with a bright and capable English student who is a “quick study” than with a narrowly trained student who claims expertise in a specific field.
English students, although in smaller numbers than political science students, have participated in the center's programs from the start. They have selected internship placements in the media, public relations, Congress, public interest groups, historic preservation, business-government relations, and the law. Their application essays reveal that their expectations differ significantly from those of their political science counterparts. Unlike political science majors, who tend to have specific political or government service aspirations, English majors usually arrive in Washington without clear career goals. But their writing, research, and oral communication skills certainly equal and often surpass those of the political science majors. Organizations and government agencies have commented that, in internship application materials, English majors often give a better idea of their intellectual maturity and potential than political science majors do. Although a few public interest and political action groups still place a premium on maintaining ideologically pure staffs, most organizations in Washington are primarily interested in a potential intern's skills and abilities.
As English majors begin their internships and accept responsibility for completing substantive and challenging projects, they typically gain confidence in the value and professional quality of their skills. Their training in research, analysis, writing, and public speaking frequently sets them apart from interns in other fields. Their ability to view issues from many angles enables them to assimilate new concepts quickly and maintain flexibility in their day-to-day work habits. In addition to giving them confidence, the internship experience exposes them to unfamiliar occupations outside academe. While in Washington, they learn that English graduates have been successful in the foreign service, government, private business, policy research organizations, congressional offices, and the media—doing work ranging from policy analysis to program management to public relations. They also gain an insider's view of an organization's structure, mandate, managerial hierarchy, and financial basis—forcing them to look more realistically at the challenges and pressures that all organizations and businesses face. Since English students seldom have experience working in a professional setting where collaborative efforts in pursuit of a common goal are more usual than individual academic efforts, they particularly benefit from this exposure.
A recent and successful participant in the center's internship program was Christie Truly, an English major from Texas Christian University who interned with the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her initial goals in coming to Washington were to learn how the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities awarded grant monies and how the grants complemented private philanthropy. As an intern with the NEH's Office of Policy Planning and Assessment in the fall of 1982, Christie tracked grant proposals through the review process; analyzed and summarized a report on recent humanities Ph.D.'s for inclusion in the OPPA's monthly newsletter, Humanities Highlights ; and revised a chapter on museums for the office's Sourcebook on the Humanities . She also worked with statistical information on private philanthropy to the humanities and, by coding it into a computer, helped prepare it for quantitative analysis. This project introduced her to an entirely new method of analysis. Her Humanities Highlights report gave her a chance to exercise her newly developed quantitative reasoning skills. In particular, the drafting and redrafting process taught her how to organize both her narrative and quantitative concepts more economically.
By the end of the internship Christie was planning to enroll in courses at Texas Christian that she had not given much thought to before, such as statistics and business. She had developed new skills and interests without having to give up her highly valued English major. At the same time, the intership gave her a new perspective on her plans to attend graduate school and a more realistic idea of her career options.
This fall the MacArthur grant will enable the center to offer five new seminars for English majors, in addition to the twenty-five already offered in government, business, international affairs, communications, law, urban affairs, and energy and the environment. The five seminars, which meet once a week for an academic term, are Public Policy—Ethical Issues and Moral Values, Introduction to Historic Preservation, The Arts in Washington, Public Relations, and Professional Writing.
The Washington Center's internship program will be accepting applications in September and October for its spring 1984 semester, which runs from February through mid-May. Participation in the internship program is based on institutional affiliation—whereby institutions appoint a faculty member or administrator to act as a liaison with the center and subsequently refer students for admission to the program. Interested faculty should call or write the center to learn more about its programs (1705 De Sales St., Washington, DC 20036; tel. 202 659-8510) or, if students from their college or university have already participated in the internship program, should speak the Washington Center liaison on their campuses.
The author is Senior Program Associate for the Washington Center, a nonprofit organization providing work and learning experience for students and teachers in Washington, D.C.
NOTE
1 Career Patterns: The Liberal Arts Major in Bell System Management (Washington, D.C.: Assoc. of American Colleges, 1981).
© 1983 by the Association of Departments of English. All Rights Reserved.
ADE Bulletin 075 (Summer 1983): 13-15 |
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