This year's Winterns took time out from their jobs at Washington, D.C.,
nonprofit organizations to pose for a group photo. |
Trying on the World
At a college already famous for the way
it allows students to take responsibility for determining their own educations— from
a no-core-curriculum policy to the high number of Special Topics courses that
individual undergraduates design one-on-one with their professors—Interterm
is perhaps the most independent part of the Amherst school year. An unstructured
three-week period sandwiched between the fall and spring semesters, Interterm
could, it is true, be used as an extended
vacation; but for an increasing number
of students, it has become an opportunity to try out potential post-graduation
jobs. This was especially true during Interterm 2003, when several programs
teamed students and alumni both on and off campus.
New this year was the Pre-Business Seminar, a three-week, on-campus course
designed to give students an idea of how business careers work. Alums in the
field spoke about nearly every business topic one could imagine, from venture
capital and entrepreneurship to management
and consulting; they served on panels,
presented lectures and pointed out useful readings from the course’s
text of choice, The Ten-Day MBA by Steven Silbiger. The seminar was organized
by junior Paris Wallace, who said his hopes for the program were wildly exceeded. “When
it
first started, I was going to limit it to 40 students, and I had no idea there
would
be very many alums involved,” he said. “But it has become huge:
140 students,
35 alums. It went really, really well.”
Interterm offered the chance for students to gain the one thing an Amherst
education does not ordinarily provide: real-life applications of theoretical
business ideas, and the chance to talk to people who see them in action (for
example, Robert Gibralter ’75 ’s step-by-step
presentation of his 2000 Avon advertising campaign). “Amherst’s
alums are its finest asset,” said Wallace. “I’m hoping people
will leave with a basic business competency, and I’d like to do something
again next year that involves bringing back alums who are both willing and
able to teach students about their fields.” A new grant from the Mellon
Foundation helped support the program, and will offer additional support for
similar efforts over the next few years.
As business-oriented alumni and students came together on campus, a smaller
group of alumni and students came together for the annual Winternship program
in Washington, D.C. For three weeks, Winternship participants stayed with alumni
who live in the D.C. area, and worked at a variety of nonprofit organizations.
So what kinds of things were these
socially conscious students doing for the month of January?
“Anything nonprofit you can imagine,” Scott Laidlaw, director of the Community
Outreach Program, says with a laugh. “They range from organizations working
to make college more affordable for low-income students to organizations focusing
on the Middle East to organizations trying to improve education in impoverished
areas. The program gives students both
a glimpse into what nonprofits can do,
and also into the political world of D.C.
in general.”
Alumni help not only by allowing students to stay in their homes, but also
with a series of special events. Laidlaw spoke
of alumni-led tours of the Washington Post, NPR, the Smithsonian Institution
and the Holocaust Museum. “Alums have been very generous in donating
their time,” he said. “They’ve helped to find a lot of internships,
either by suggesting places for us to call or by offering opportunities in
the organizations they work for themselves.”
Winternship began roughly 10 years ago with only four students; it has since
grown to a 12-intern program for which slots are very much in demand. There
were twice as many applicants for every position as there were jobs. “It’s
become increasingly popular in terms of the number of applications, and also
in terms of the number of organizations involved,” Laidlaw said of the
program. “And more and more alumni have volunteered to house students.
We’re discussing the possibility of expanding to New York City, Boston,
San Francisco. There are so many students who are interested, the demand is
so high, and there are so many opportunities that it would be great to expand
the program.”
Assistant Director of Community Outreach Tom Lepak emphasized the ways in which
this program, like the Pre-Business Seminar, gives students the chance to try
something they can’t do during the regular school year. “Students
still on campus are definitely still involved in community outreach work; many
of those about to graduate are considering careers in nonprofit organizations,” he
said. “They appreciate the chance to see if the nonprofit world is right
for them, and they’re interested to see alums who have become very successful
but are still so dedicated to Amherst and to the students here.”
—Rebecca Louick ’04
Next:
Physics Goes Mobile >>
Photo: Scott Laidlaw
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