#edutech #college #work #NFT #education #remotework #onlinelearning #stem #talent #diversity #highered #STEM #blog

There Have Been Many Labels Applied To College and Trade School Student Career Success. I will expand on 3 of the most popular labels applied to EduTech as it applies to students gaining experience while in school.

Micro-Internships

This one of the newer coined terms for students gaining experience for their resume. Normally an internship involves an agreement between a student at a latter stage of a school program and a company looking to hire that student. Once accepted the student goes through an onboarding process with the company which includes training. Within a traditional internship, a student more or less receives the experience of being in a particular workplace. Most of the core skills within an internship are transparent to the student. This is where Micro-internships come into play...a micro internship has a specific focus with respect to the type of training a student gets to experience. The value in a micro-internship is in a student getting a chance to gain a skill of interest with an organization and each party gets to vet one another based on a sample set of experience of work completed.

Student Freelance

Student Freelance is a term which has been around for quite some time. It evokes both positive and negative connotations. First the good...freelance enables a freedom and flexibility to chart ones course while also earning income. To be effective there has to be an enabler or platform allowing students to work within a proving ground. AN issue here is the student may not have much experience and it may take a significant amount of time to earn the freelance label. The bad...student freelance gives the idea of businesses getting cheap student labor or for that matter free labor. This term also centers around a student taking the bull by the horns and gaining the needed experience needed for future success.

Work Experience Builders

Work Experience Builders is not a new term, but coined as a phrase for a students building blocks toward career success this term is relatively new. As with Micro-Internships and Student Freelance having a web platform as a growth enabler is important. Work Experience Builders implies students gaining experience in a variety of ways to achieve growth. In one way a student may gain experience on a volunteer project that they work on alone. In another setting a student may complete simulations of real case studies to view what an enterprise environment is like. In a third setting a student may work with students from their school or from different schools to grow their experience.

As you can see with all 3 terms the key variable is gaining experience. Each model helps students achieve objectives in similar but different ways. Gaining the needed experience in these models may involve completing an application, placing a bid for work, and/or completing a combined course. Which option should a student use? Depends on the student and at what stage of school there are at...it may be best to test all 3 options to find out which one offers the best value for the student long term.