University of Prince Edward Island

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Panther Prints

November 19, 1996

Business Studies at UPEI Include New Internship Program

UPEI's Business depart- ment has integrated a new in- ternship program into its cur- riculum. Through research, the business department dis- covered that on-the-job train- ing is extremely popular across the nation, and so UPEI's School of Business Adminis- tration has become an active participant in this program.

The Co-op program began in 1957 in the Univer- sity of Waterloo's Engineer- ing department. Since then, the program has escalated in popularity, having 129 insti- tutes involved across Canada, equalling about 56,000 Co-op students (see graph page 2).

Co-operative education is offered in the third year to

UPEI Business students. The program is optional, not re- quired. But there is only lim- ited space, approximately 25 students are accepted, which means they must apply for the program and then be invited for an interview.

The first selection of Internship students has already been completed, with 34 stu-

dents who applied and 27 stu- dents who got accepted.

The interviews were conducted at the Business de- partment. When asked what they thought of the interviews many of the applicants said that the interviews were not intimidating and therefore they felt at ease in their interview.

Once accepted the stu-

Pre - registration Big Headache

“They should tie the reg- istrar to a tree outside Kelley Building for the same length of time we all had to stand out there.”

This attitude was shared by hundreds of UPEI students as they waited in temperatures just below zero on Tuesday morning for pre-registration of second semester.

Staff of the registrars office, many of whom have been there since UPEI opened in 1969 have “never seen a pre-registration lineup suchas we saw on Tuesday.” The question is why?

Toting blankets and stereos students began camp- ing out in Kelley building Monday night.

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As the stu-

dents made camp for the night Alanis Morrissette could be heard in the hall way as if her belting out of “Ironic” could help alleviate the ironicy of pre-registration, and perhaps help students forget that they were spending the night in order to spend two minutes the next morning registering.

One fourth year student who avoided the lineup, but sympathized with those who had to wait in line said that “The whole point of pre-reg- istration is to avoid lineups on registration day.”

When asked why the lineup this year was greater than any other, John DeGrace, Registrar, said that there were two possible reasons. “First,

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especially during the last two years, there has beena propor- tional shift to the sciences in enrolments; and students might have been concerned about getting their preferred class and/or lab section...Second, we adver- tised that, on registration day, we would open the Office at 7:00am in order to accommo- date students already lined up to pre-register....was intended to shorten people’s waits, [opening early] may have worsened the situation by sending an unspoken message that ‘if they are opening an hour-and-a-half early it must be important so I had better get in line.’ ”

Two possibilities being looked into to avoid lineups in the future including a tel- ephone registration, (using the touch tone pad to enter infor- mation), and an on-line regis- tration, or self-registration through remote computer ter- minals. Other universities across Canada are already on- line or offer registration via automated phone service. Although these systems have flaws, they seem to work well over all.

UPEI is a small univer- sity, with full-time enrollment at around 2500, and the ex- pense of switching to registra- tion by phone may out way the

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dent is then left with the task of landing ajob. Ernie Doiron, Internship Coordinator, stated that the program assists in find- ing a job for the Co-op stu- dents; however, the students are required to officially se- cure the job on their own, such as going to job interviews. Doiron explained, "looking for a job is truly a learning expe- rience on its own".

He also explained, "we provide the students with the workshop skills". These work- shops include: Resume Prepa- ration, Interview Skills, The Job Market: Trends and Op- portunities, Employer Expec- tations, Networking Tech- niques and Employer Re- search.

The students are en- couraged to work abroad or at home. Any jobs they obtain must be approved by the pro- gram coordinator. Students who have been accepted into the program are required to work three work terms, rang- ing from 13 to 16 weeks.

Also, in addition to these work terms, the students are expected to complete 40 semester hours. This means

Pages 1-5 News

Pages 7&8

Pages 9& 10

Sports Opinion

Pages 13 & 14 Exam

Schedule

ages 15 -18