New territory: Waikato University senior lecturer Glyndwr Jones supports students being able to take part in internships overseas.
Two University of Waikato students are off to Germany to take up an internship with a Not for Profit organisation which works with people with disabilities in developing countries.
Waikato Management School students Ruth Venter and Diwen Cao will spend three months or more working with CBM in the German city of Bensheim, near Frankfurt.
Embedding students in organisations
Their visit is part of the Management School's internship programme that started in 2010 where top students work with a mentor on a project in an organisation.
Senior lecturer Glyndwr Jones says students taking part in the internships in New Zealand commit to working on their project for 150 hours in the organisation over 15 weeks.
"They have to be embedded in the organisation," he says.
"They also have an authentic project and a mentor."
First time internationally
This is, however, the first time for WMS interns to take up projects in Germany.
"They (CBM) came and met with us in July last year, liked what we are doing and out of that the internships have emerged."
Interns can be placed with all sorts of organisations he says.
"We have interns working with Not-for-Profits, SMEs, government departments, large corporates, ‘start-ups’, locally, nationally and offshore."
"We started in 2010 with just four internships and we should have placed 170 by the end of this year," he says.
"This year we’ll probably place 70 or more internships."
Great learning opportunity
Venter, who is completing the internship as part of her masters degree says she will be helping CBM develop measures to report the carbon footprint of the organisation.
"I will focus on the carbon footprint of their international office and the policy can then roll out to their offices around the world."
Cao, studying a postgraduate diploma in social enterprise, will concentrate on communication strategies the organisation can use to effectively report those results.
"It's a great opportunity," she says.
"It's a real project and a challenge. The fact we are from different disciplines and working on the same project is fantastic and I'm really looking forward to it."