On September 26, 2024, OWU held its biannual Connection Conference. The connection conference, held every semester, has multiple events and panels expanding throughout the entire day. Students, professors, and multiple organizations come together and share experiences, information, research, and more.
The Connection Conference is a great way to help students understand what they can get involved with, whether that be about study abroad opportunities or hearing about student research. Ohio Wesleyan students are able to participate in the Connection Conference by sharing their research or experiences with other students to help them get a sense of the culture and academics here on campus.
Often, student-led organizations and boards participate in the conference. As members of the Communication Student Board, we want to get our department out there and discuss students’ experiences within our major. So, for the past two semesters, we have held a panel at the Connection Conference, COMM Learn About Internships.
This paneling event is to help students understand how not only communication internships work, but all internships at OWU and the personal experiences that each of the panelists have had, sharing what we’ve learned, what it felt like, how to do an internship, what to expect, and much more.
There are many different internship opportunities at OWU. There are study abroad internship programs, personal connection internships, or even internship opportunities offered through OWU. Each panelist was able to talk about these experiences so that students could have multiple perspectives of different internships.
This panel was an opportunity for students to not only understand how internships work and what they’re about, but also to ask questions about our experiences and our opinions about the internships we have done. Each of us were able to explain any hardships we went through, or what was most exciting, and even possibly what we learned through the internship experience.
It’s important to us as a board to get information out to students, and that’s why I find it important for students to get involved with the Connection Conference, whether they get involved by going to these panels or actively participating and being a panelist. Sharing these experiences helps one another and can make an impact on someone who might want to do an internship, for example. Hearing it from another student gives other students the reassurance that they may need.
Even if the panel may not be to your major, it can link to it in some way, and that is what the Communication Student Board wanted. Not only are we trying to inform communication students about internship experiences, but we also want to connect to others who may want to do an internship during their time here at OWU.
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