Jamie Rose Montagne was set to begin her dream internship this summer when fallout from COVID-19 pulled the rug out from under her.
In October, Montagne, a rising junior and political science major at Davidson College, began the application process for an internship with U.S. Department of State.
She was accepted on a conditional basis in December and went through a lengthy security clearance process. But the Department of State informed its applicants last week that all summer internships would be canceled with no opportunity for deferment, she said.
What was months of work was taken away in a matter of minutes.
"These internships take a lot of work to get, and having this was something that would be a stepping stone for something later on in my career," she said. "It left me, in mid-April, nervous because a lot of places aren’t necessarily hiring interns."
Montagne said about a week before she received word about her internship, she began feeling like she needed a backup plan. While a full-time internship probably wasn't in the cards, Montagne knew a Davidson program called Gig Hub would give her some professional experience.
Gig Hub, a product of The Hurt Hub at Davidson, is an exchange where students and startups connect on short-term, real world projects or "microinternships."
"It’s still going to give me a chance to apply the skills I’ve learned," she said. "It was important to have a professional-based internship, and this gets me as close as I can get considering the circumstances."
Montagne said several friends and her boyfriend, who will be a senior, lost internships too.
"Generally, everyone is scrambling," she said. "(My boyfriend) is definitely a little bit nervous about not having this summer to do something in his wheelhouse to bring to an employer once he graduates."
Devin Collins, interim executive director of Ventureprise at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, said the pandemic has brought with it the uncertainty that many juniors and seniors, as well as graduate students, will be able to complete summer internships.
"You have a breadth of (UNCC) students who do local internships, and a lot who are going out to Silicon Valley and New York City for the opportunity to access the potential workforce and build a skillset," he said.
Across the country, Collins said, companies in every industry are postponing and canceling internship programs these students rely on for course credit and income.
Glassdoor, StubHub, Yelp and even the National Institutes of Health are some of companies canceling internship programs due to COVID-19, according to TechCrunch.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced last week during a weekly Q & A session with employees that the company was terminating contingent worker contracts early and postponing summer internships and undergrad hiring until 2021.
"We're in that state where some students have an internship lined up but are unsure if that'll still be the case in the next few weeks," Collins said. "And it's becoming much more difficult for the students still in the process of looking."
But Collins said many companies will pivot to remote programs, so students who haven't yet procured an internship shouldn't stop looking, and those who have should try to remain optimistic.
Tech Holds Steady
Patrick Madsen, director of the UNCC Career Center, said many tech and startup companies have been able to pivot quickly to remote work for daily operations, as well as internship programs.
For larger companies like Bank of America and Vanguard, internships may run for a shorter period or start in the winter instead of the summer, Madsen said. He doesn't expect these companies to abandon internships completely, however.
"In tech, we've been hearing more positive things," he said. "Some of these companies already have some flavor of remote work, so they just have to amp it up.
"We're seeing a lot of tech businesses and startups having that grit to figure out how to make it work so they can give these students something."
Student Impact
Madsen said he's optimistic that these changes won't severely hinder graduates in the tech industry for several reasons---the level of technology available to most students and graduates and quick reactions from businesses transitioning to remote work.
"Although we are seeing a small percentage of internships being canceled or put on hold, there are considerably more opportunities for students to continue to build their skills through online learning, project based learning or micro-internships and other avenues," he said. "It will be those students who decide to continue to build their skills and experience through these other means, in the absence of a traditional internship, that will show greater success than those who choose not to."
Even still, Madsen said some students he's spoken with are expressing worry over what comes next.
"I'm hearing from students in the trenches, there’s still a general sense of shock. They’re overwhelmed," he said. "We're combating that by trying to educate around helping them prepare for the ripple effect of the pandemic."
The university is doing so by doubling available resources. Madsen said it was easy to move almost all planned live career events to virtual, and students have been taking advantage. It also offers a "Gig-Ternship" program, similar to Davidson's Gig Hub.
"Employers are getting to do more panels. They’re in front of students, who are eating it up," he said. "We've also doubled down on consulting and working with small businesses and startups to train them to take on interns."
Queen City startups are benefitting from the additional resources, too. Smart Girls HQ and Informative Technologies have both been able to sustain, and even expand, their internship programs despite the current health and economic crisis.
Opportunity Knocks
Abi Olukeye, founder of Smart Girls HQ, said access to students was the reason she became a university partner through UNCC's PORTAL Innovation Center at the end of last year.
Olukeye launched the EdTech startup in 2018 to help bridge the gender and resource gap for young girls in the STEM field. Its flagship product, the Raising Smart Girls online community, offers insights, editorial content and a newsletter for parents, teachers and other adults looking to foster an early love of STEM.
Olukeye recently brought on a digital marketing intern who will work remotely through the summer. The intern, Olukeye said, will be paid through a scholarship from career services. She is also interviewing students for several remote internships. Those students will receive a small stipend and be responsible for short-term projects.
"Internships really give me a lot of flexibility, rather than looking at the regular labor market," she said. "It also helps these students who have been handicapped by what's been going on."
Olukeye said she saw an influx of student interest once the stay-at-home order was implemented in March. Knowing the need was there made the ability to extend internship offers to students during a time cloaked in uncertainty mean so much to her.
"It’s amazing... Being able to offer the opportunity to these students to continue to learn and allow them to continue to building their resumes with work that is meaningful," she said. "It’s been such a rough year for students at the end of their learning period, the junior and seniors."
Informative Technologies' founder and CEO James Walker is also no stranger to training and mentoring interns.
At any given time, Walker has 10-12 interns on staff, ranging from high school students up through graduate school. Some, he said, are paid through grant funding and others receive college credit.
"There are companies right now that have to downscale," he said. "All of our internships are on semesters, which gives us an agile and lean workforce."
Informative Technologies, founded in 2014, is a social enterprise aimed at reusing technology, thus not having to discard it. The startup's software revives “obsolete” computers, making them run better and faster. Those devices are then distributed to people in neighborhoods affected by the digital divide.
Walker said said after a brief period of paused operations, the pandemic has unintentionally strengthened his intern workforce.
"I try to teach every intern how to work remotely as a part of their experience," he said. "We use Slack and other outlets to stay connected and post findings and share insights and questions with one another."
Walker's hope is that this forced shift to remote work helps the general population to see how critical tech and startups are.
"My hope is that this becomes somewhat of a new reality and resets what the startup and tech community can be," he said. "I want it to allow us to scale in a way that creates job opportunities that are more sustainable."
Madsen said he's impressed by the Charlotte region's startup and tech community's ability to shift and adapt.
"I’m very optimistic and energized that our business community was able to make the switch and get moving," he said. "It's really cool to see, and I think it shows, especially for Charlotte region, a whole new opportunity for how we do business."
