How internships help CSULB students gain real-world experience in the workplace
Inside a Long Beach classroom where dozens of middle school students encountered the noisy joys of brass horns, keyboards, violins and guitars, Cal State Long Beach student Ben Rifkin had a preview of what life could be like as a music teacher.
“It was really neat, especially because we got four or three run-throughs of the same song,” said Rifkin, a third-year music major. “I could hear them treat the song more musically, more sensibly.”
Rifkin, via a campus internship with local nonprofit Jazz Angels, spent an early fall afternoon at Intellectual Virtues Academy in the Long Beach neighborhood of Bixby Knolls to help guide young students into the world of music. On that day, the students practiced “Low Rider” and Rifkin observed after a few rehearsals, students were getting the idea that performing in an ensemble means there are times when most of the group needs to play softly and give specific players, say, the violinists, a few bars to stand out.
The Academic Internships Office at Cal State Long Beach helped Rifkin, considering the prospect of teaching music professionally, acquire this experience through its Long Beach Community Internship Program. Rifkin, who specializes in the trumpet and admires the work of jazz musicians like Chet Baker and Miles Davis, gained confidence in his own musicianship earlier in life as a Jazz Angels student in his early teens.
“I see some people that are on the shyer side of musicians starting to break out of their shell and have fun,” Rifkin said. “In Jazz Angels, it always felt like I’m going to make some music and have some fun.”
The Long Beach Community Internship program is one of three Academic Internships offerings helping students find internships combined with financial support. This and the other two programs, College Corps @ The Beach and Project Resilience, have helped hundreds of students intern with locally-serving organizations, strengthen their resumes and perceive their capacity to do meaningful work.
“We don’t make the students great, they come to us with these strengths,” said senior faculty fellow for internships Beth Manke, also a professor of human development. “What we do is we provide a platform for them to shine.”
Each of these programs provide financial benefits, so it’s easier for students – many of whom are first-generation and students of color – to take on internships without enduring the burden of unpaid work.
“We’re talking about students who have historically been sidelined as it comes to paid internship opportunities,” Manke said.
The Long Beach Community Internship Program is for Long Beach College Promise students. Interns receive $2,000 scholarships while completing service hours with local nonprofits, city of Long Beach departments or small business.
Another program, College Corps @ The Beach is campus’ way of participating in College Corps, a statewide internship drive focused on climate issues, food insecurity and K-12 education. This two-semester program enables Beach students to receive $10,000 worth of benefits.
The third option, Project Resilience, is a federally funded program centered on Asian American and Pacific Islander and low-inome students. Internships offered via the College of Liberal Arts or Career Development Center provide scholarships of up to $2,000.
“I feel like I was able to develop a lot professionally,” said Kelliana Lim ‘24, who participated in both Project Resilience and College Corps. “Getting to expand my networks. Getting to apply the knowledge I learned in classes to real life.”
Cascading successes
These Academic Internships’ programs have, since spring 2021, helped nearly 450 students find internships. Students can take on assignments aligned to hosting organizations’ specialized missions or employ broadly applicable proficiencies like accounting skills, Manke said.
Jazz Angels, for example, is also hosting interns assisting with the group’s website and fundraising operations. Another Long Beach nonprofit, For the Child, finds opportunities for interns who are qualified to help serve children and teens who have survived abuse and neglect, as well as interns who can focus on communications and social media efforts.
“The nice thing about this program is that it’s mutually beneficial,” said Michele Winterstein, executive director of For the Child. “The interns that come through the community internship program brought knowledge of the communities we serve, because many of them grew up in the Long Beach communities we serve.”
Former Long Beach Community Internship participant Ladan Mohamed ‘21 majored in health science with an option in community health education. She interned with For the Child in spring 2021, translating documents from English to Spanish, researching telehealth services for children and upgrading lessons for court-ordered parenting classes.
Mohamed’s internship strengthened her ability to answer difficult phone calls, empowering her to connect clients to therapists and other assistance. After completing her internship, she obtained part-time work with For the Child before being promoted to full-time intake case manager. She now aspires to complete graduate study in child welfare at Cal State Fullerton and credits her internship with helping her to find her calling.
“I wouldn’t have realized that I have a passion for working with families with trauma, and that social work was the route I wanted to go for,” Mohamed said.
The Community Internship Program relies on donors. Philanthropic supporters include Farmers & Merchants Bank Foundation, which is the program’s initial corporate sponsor.
“This dynamic program creates a triple win for our community: amazing students are afforded meaningful paid internship opportunities, our local nonprofits benefit from the talents, energy, and skills the students bring, and our local workforce benefits with an influx of confident, capable, community-minded graduates with hands-on experience,” foundation director Tiffany Roberts said.
Personal growth
The Beach helps interns get the most out of their hours. Students in any of the three programs take special courses or participate in Career Development Center activities to help them synthesize academic and practical learning. Also, Project Resilience includes a peer mentoring component focused on reinforcing students’ mental health.
“I think a lot of our students learn a lot more about themselves,” said Michelle Chang, director of the Academic Internships Office.
Internships can help participants to assess their own personal growth. One way this can occur is when they intern with organizations serving the very neighborhoods where they grew up.
For example, College Corps intern and fourth-year computer engineering student Carlos Orozco found himself teaching youngsters at the same elementary school he attended. He drew upon his STEM learning to teach school children about solar panels while interning with Ground Education, a local nonprofit that uses gardening to introduce school children to ecology and concepts related to food production.
"It gave me a sense of worth and completion, helping these students knowing that I was in their shoes maybe eight or five years ago,” Orozco said.
Lim had a similar experience while working with Khmer Girls in Action to help first- generation students apply for college during her Project Resilience internship. She now works for Khmer Girls in Action as a communications coordinator.
“I really learned that I loved helping our community and ensuring growth in our youth,” Lim said. “They really feel like they’re invested into.”
