Idaho State University internships help employ graduates

POCATELLO – An internship program at Idaho State University (ISU) hopes to keep graduates in Idaho by preparing them for jobs.

The program, Career Path Internships (CPI), now in its 10th year, has provided more than 7,000 internships to students, according to Emily Jahsman, associate director of the college’s career center, which administers the program.

“Once organizations find out about the internship program, they try to keep doing it as much as they can,” Jahsman said. “It’s pretty frequent that, once they start, they keep trying to reapply and get interns again.”

One such company is MedMan, a practice management company.

“We focus on helping medical clinics run the way they should; everything from patient flow to the finances to the people that work there,” said Jesse Arnoldson, director of interim management of the Boise-based company, in an email message.

An ISU and CPI alumnus himself, Arnoldson approached the program to help the company add talent.

“It can be a real struggle to hire someone right out of college,” Arnoldson said. “They usually lack the track record and experience we would be looking for. The CPI program allows us to ‘test drive’ these young professionals and help us build a pipeline of talent for when we have a position to fill.”

The company hired MaKenna Little, now in graduate school, for her third internship in the health sciences field.

“I love the aspects of practice management and have been always been wanting to end up in that area of the industry,” Little said. “This position has given me the opportunity to see how a practice is built from the ground up and all the different parts that come into play in order to open the doors. The CPI program is amazing for students like myself, because you are able to gain great experience from people who have already been around the block.”

The program has worked well for both the company and the students.

“We felt that it was such a benefit to MedMan and our clinics that we then invested in bringing on three more CPIs since then,” Arnoldson said. “We’ve hired one of them permanently and are hoping to do the same with MaKenna when she graduates.”

Program details

The program started with 250 students and a budget of $300,000, and has grown steadily, Jahsman said. The Idaho Legislature now appropriates $500,000 toward the program annually as well, bringing the total to $2.3 million per year.

All internships are paid at $9 per hour at the bachelors level, $11 at the masters level and $13 for doctoral students, Jahsman said. Positions are a mix of on- and off-campus, with 150 off-campus positions last year. ISU pays students’ salaries no matter where the position is located.

Students who work in off-campus organizations have the opportunity to build their professional networks and are more likely to get hired after they finish their internship because by then they are a trained employee, Jahsman said.

“We’re trying to grow that portion of the program,” she added

Internships are available in all of the school’s colleges. For example, biology students could get positions in the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, while accounting students may get hired by accounting firms in Burley. Engineering students have been hired by the Idaho Transportation Department, while education students get hired by school districts to assist teachers as a pre-student teacher.

The advantage of the program is that it gives students an idea of what careers they want to pursue – or not.

“They get in there early and make sure that what they’re studying is what they’re passionate about,” Jahsman said.

The program also helps motivate students.

“Over the past eight years, there’s been a 13% higher retention for participants than non-participations,” she said. “I’m not claiming it’s the only cause, but I truly believe that engaging students in other ways than classroom helps them come back and persist.”