The market for this service has a few segments our major
market is college senior in need of an internship for graduation, college
seniors who want an internship for the experience, and lastly other college
students looking for a head start on credible real world experience.
For this assignment I chose the most important segment of
seniors with the necessity of internship for graduation.
I interviewed three students that fit perfectly into this
segment, an aspiring teacher and two hopefuls in the sport management field
like myself. My idea has two main factors the first of gaining experience
through the internship, but also just as importantly being able to get paid for
it. For this reason I purposely chose an aspiring teacher because their need is
partially met but not completely. Those in the college of education that want
to teach have programs that help them intern at local schools but they do not
pay. Where this becomes an issue is that they cannot get an independent
internship that will pay. They must go through the school. The sport management
students talked about how stressful it is to have to rely on finding an
internship on their own and if not they cannot graduate.
Since the need for the future teacher is more about the
payment and they don’t have much of a choice to find internships elsewhere
their information search consists strictly of gathering information from the
schools available options. The sport management major had very similar
searching styles. Their first step was simply going into google and searching “sport
management internships in my area.” This is exactly what I did before coming up
with this idea. After gathering some information there they then moved on to
finding out how to get in with their local sports teams. One of them through a
friend of a friend has made some connections in the sports world while the
other has been doing it all on their own.
This segment is very aware of this unmet need as it causes
stress in their lives as they search for answers. When it comes to the
information search at times they seem confused as sometimes being too broad
doesn’t help you find what you are looking for and rather need to specify their
searches.
Ryan - This is what I understand: 1)Internships are required to graduate for the school of education and Sports management; 2)The school of education provides 'no pay' internships to the graduating candidates. Candidates are not allowed to secure their own internships; 3)Sports management degree candidates must find internships on their own - a very stressful situation as internship is a requirement to graduate. If my understanding is accurate, your opportunity ides would be a great service to the student body in Sports Management, and perhaps other majors. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteHello Isaac! As I said in my previous post, this idea seems extremely nice. However, it's also true that universities consider those compulsory internships as part of your tuition, not as a "job" that you have to get paid for (although it completely is a work!). So there's the problem. In Spain happens exactly the same, if you want to get paid, you have to find the job on your own. Anyways, good job!
ReplyDeleteHey Ryan the good news is you will not have to much trouble finding people who agree 100% with your idea. As I stated before I really wish this idea would have been thought about earlier. I'm sure businesses and employers would be on board also because it helps them mold good potential future employees
ReplyDeleteHey Ryan, my sister is a teacher and she had the same problem. The program requires a great amount of work and no pay. Which is a problem when you need money for food or rent. I heard that when you do this program you are not allowed to get a side job to make any money, which baffles me. If there was a way students could do their program and receive compensation for their work i think it would be a great stress relief to most.
ReplyDeleteThe segment of college seniors is the main market and should definitely get preference over other students in the program. The stress of having to find an internship is hard enough on its own but being required to have one in order to graduate makes it many times more stressful. I had the same problem when looking on google for internships, I ended up being too broad and had no luck finding something that would work for me.
ReplyDelete