Another wave of grant money has recently washed onto campus, resulting in limited availabilities for students.
Students can make anywhere from $10 to $22 an hour for internship work and receive $1,000 to $2,000 in tuition remission for completing it.
Getting real-world work experience while in college is a good opportunity. Getting paid heftily is even better. When those doors open for Youngstown State University students, it’s amazing.
But problems arise when only some YSU students benefit.
The state is playing favorites by limiting these internships and co-ops to only five fields: the ones that pay.
Unless you’re qualified for fields in advanced manufacturing, aerospace and aviation, bio-health, information technology or the financial sector, you’re on your own.
The latter is of particular interest, as our economic woes of late are the direct result of erratic, unregulated behavior by irresponsible and unethical bankers.
John Kasich, the current governor of Ohio and the former managing director of Lehman Brothers, and JobsOhio, his brainchild, formulated these limitations placed on student opportunity that will ultimately eradicate jobs.
By simultaneously investing in IT and advanced manufacturing, and with the rate in which artificial intelligence is progressing, machines ultimately benefit.
Students aspiring to enter a profession in education, law or health care (among other fields) are overlooked in the JobsOhio plan.
Granted, there will be a growing need for skilled workers in some of those five fields, but they won’t be the only professions seeking workers.
The fact is, if you’re outside of the Williamson College of Business Administration or the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, find your own internship. And best of luck finding a well-paying one.
Have you ever tried to look for a journalism internship that paid? There aren’t many.
Meanwhile, the STEM and WCBA students will fuel Kasich’s jobs agenda, moving toward the ultimate goal: a wealthy, ruling elite profiting from lightly staffed, fully automated advanced manufacturing facilities.
We’ll always need journalists, lawyers, educators and doctors, regardless of what JobsOhio thinks.
As for financiers, enjoy it while you can. It’s only a matter of time before someone creates an algorithm that will calculate and assess market performance and release software that will invest on behalf of the customer while mitigating risk.
We’re happy for our STEM and business classmates. But we’re feeling a little forgotten in the governor’s plan.
If Ohio’s educational priorities really are to become one that nurtures business and STEM at the cost of all other fields, we’re on the wrong track.
Instead, there should be initiatives to create and fund a diverse and multifaceted workforce, one that offers more than just science and business.
1 comments Anonymous Tue Feb 19 2013 09:39 Well stated. I am in total agreement.