College Students and the New Apprentice Economy
27th March 2011
Many blogs and major articles, including posts on YouTern, have pointed out that a college degree no longer equates to a job offer. As the economy settles into new realities, employers are expecting more of candidates with a fresh education and little experience.
College students are already responding by adding internships as a compulsory component of their college experience. According to NACE, over the past decade or two the college students that have completed an internship have increased from 10% to over 70%. Taking this trend a step further, many students have increased the number of internships they complete, believing that to be competitive the norm has become at least three career-relevant internships during their college career.
I, for one, would like it better if they were called ‘apprentices’ rather than ‘interns’.
March 28th, 2011 at 10:57
Tim, nobody likes to use long words like, “apprentice”. (Besides, most VPs can’t type that out on their Blackberries.)
A better term would be: “LPK”, as in, “Have one of the LPKs get into SAP and see how many widgets we bought last year.”
thebardofmurdock, I liked the poem.
* LPK = Low-Paid Knucklehead