Research an opportunity

The Wisconsin Experience

In this class you learn about what we call the "Wisconsin Experience": a combination of structured general-education requirements, high-impact practices, flexible certificate programs, and diverse major fields that you can use to design your unique path through your undergraduate education.  In this assignment you will reflect on what aspects of the Wisconsin Experience you would most like to pursue, and identify some specific resources for doing so.  You will do this based on what you have learned about your previous experiences ("wanderings"), your strengths (StrengthsFinder), and your accomplishments (CAR statements).

Read this first

• George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, Jennifer A. Buckley, Brian K. Bridges, and John C. Hayek, "Student behaviors, activities, and experiences associated with student success," in Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle (San Francisco: Wiley, 2007). Download George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, Jennifer A. Buckley, Brian K. Bridges, and John C. Hayek, "Student behaviors, activities, and experiences associated with student success," in Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle (San Francisco: Wiley, 2007).
   

Complete these steps

1. Explore your options.  Recall from your Taking Initiative Student Guide some of the specific opportunities you can find within the Wisconsin Experience that are offered to second year students and beyond.  Take some time to explore some of these resources:

• Capstone courses (like the ones in the Nelson Institute)
• Certificate programs (like the Business certificate for L&S majors)
• Community Building through Equity and Diversity
• Honors courses
• Independent/Directed Study
• Intercultural Dialogues
• Multicultural Arts Initiatives (like First Wave)
• Residential Learning Communities
• Seminar courses (for example, though the International Studies major)
• Service Learning (for example, through the Morgridge Center)
• Student Organizations and Leadership
• Study Abroad
• Technology-Intensive Courses (for example, through the Digital Studies certificate)
• Undergraduate Research
• Undergraduate Thesis (for example, in the History major)
• Writing-Intensive courses

Many of these work, research, and volunteer opportunities fall under the category of "internships" -- some paid, some unpaid.  You can find listings for internships in lots of places:

• Handshake job and internship database
• International Internships Program database
• Morgridge Center volunteer opportunities database
• Graduate School summer research opportunity database
• WiScience undergraduate research opportunity database
• CareerLocker listings (free access through your MyUW page)

(Please note: Sometimes web links go stale! If any of the above links fail to connect, please let your TA know so we can fix them.  And try to just do a Google search over the "site:wisc.edu" domain to find the pages of interest in the meantime.)

2. Choose an opportunity to research.  Identify one "Wisconsin Experience" activity you might like to participate in, and write a one-page dossier researching that activity. (Pretend you are trying to succinctly describe it for a parent, or a future employer.) For example, you may wish to include:

• Brief description of what the activity is, when it is offered, and how long it takes.
• Prerequisites to the activity, if any, and which ones you still lack.
• Name and contact information of a person on campus who can help you find out more about this activity, or authorize you for the activity.
• Any other information that is important to know about this activity.

If the activity that you have chosen can be understood as an "internship" -- some sort of organized work that helps you gain experience and exposure with a career that you're interested in -- you'll need to dig deeper.  You need to demonstrate that you know enough about the organization, and the work opportunity, to understand what they do, why they do it, and how you might fit into the mix. For example, here are some questions you should try to answer:

• What is the mission of the organization? What is the purpose of the job?
• What products or services does the organization provide to the world? Does it have any competitors?
• Is the organization for-profit or non-profit? Is it publicly-owned or privately-owned?
• How is the organization seen by others in the same industry or profession? What is its reputation for work culture?
• What does the organization say about itself? (For example, on its web site.)
• Who currently heads this organization? Give some brief information about this person.
• What types of changes, trends, societal and economic factors are occurring or impacting the work that this organization does?
• How large is the organization? Do you know if the work opportunity you seek is under a certain division, department, program or project within organization? What can you find out about this part of the organization?
• What are the minimum/required qualifications and preferred/desired qualifications for the job you seek? (Which ones do you possess?)
• What are the duties required of the job? (Which ones do you have experience or transferable skills for?)
• What are the three most important things you would learn by being affiliated with this organization or trying out this work opportunity?

3. Reflect on what this opportunity would offer.  Now on a second page, write three detailed reasons why pursuing this activity would be valuable, based on your own academic and career goals. For example, if one activity is taking a particualr writing intensive course on a challenging topic that is unfamiliar to you the reasons might include "wandering" through the topic as a possible career area, building on one of your strengths in communicating to diverse audiences, or being able to narrate a successful CAR experience of rapidly synthesizing new and unfamiliar information.

4. Turn it in.  Upload your two-page document to Canvas to get credit for this assignment.  

Notes on this assignment

• One of the benefits of attending a large public research university like UW-Madison is that there are so many curricular and extra-curricular opportunities that you can mix in with your major and general education requirements. This is also one of the drawbacks -- there is so much to do that you can't possibly do everything, and that makes it hard to choose. This assignment demonstrates a series of pragmatic steps you can take in order to evaluate these sorts of opportunities.
• Probably the most important aspect, though, is identifying a human contact person who can help you find out more about the activity, or authorize you for the activity. Even if you don't end up following through with that particular activity, you will have expanded your on-campus social network and learned something about possible career paths through talking to folks on campus about Wisconsin Experience options.
• The most common difficulty students have with this assignment is not finding an opportunity that might interest them, but researching that opportunity in an appropriate and useful way. In an era of online company web sites and archives of business-press news articles, any employer will expect that you have done your research about an organization before applying to that organization for a job. Applicants who demonstrate a basic ignorance of what the organization does, who its market and competitors are, and what has been happening with the organization in the news recently will not receive a second chance to make a first impression. If nothing else, your organizational research prepares you for that part of an interview where you are asked, "Do you have any questions for me?" So don't skimp on this part of the assignment; try to assemble a full page of detailed information.
• Applying for and attending graduate school is often the next logical "work opportunity" depending on your choice of career, so you may use that as an example as well.
• If you chose a work or internship opportunity, how might you alter your resume to match the needs of this organization?
• Is there anything in your LinkedIn profile that would obviously and directly connect with this opportunity, if someone from this organization searched for you on LinkedIn?
• How would you answer the potential interview question of “What can you offer this organization?”
• The federal government has policies which define whether a work experience qualifies as an "internship" or not.  (See the US Department of Labor Fact Sheet #71, "Internship programs under the Fair Labor Standards Act Download Internship programs under the Fair Labor Standards Act
  ")  Does the work experience that you chose qualify as an internship under the FLSA rules?
• What kind of Wisconsin Experience activities have you already pursued as a student here, if any?  (If you haven't pursued any yet, reflect on why that is!)
• The Association of American Colleges & Universities issued a report on High-Impact Educational Practices Links to an external site. in 2008.  How many of these are offered at UW-Madison?

Examples

Optional videos 

Here are two short videos that explain more about the "Wisconsin Experience":

To learn more

• Taking Initiative Student Guide Download Taking Initiative Student Guide
  chapter 05, "Making the most of your major."
• Katharine Brooks, You Majored in What? chapter 06, "Even wanderers make plans."
• Association of American Colleges & Universities, Key findings from 2013 survey of employers (2013). Download Association of American Colleges & Universities, Key findings from 2013 survey of employers (2013).
  When colleges survey employers to find out what kinds of skills they desire in recent graduates, the value of a liberal arts and sciences education becomes clear.
• Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, "A mandate for reform," in Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). Download Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, "A mandate for reform," in Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).
   
• Bill Coplin, "Making Smart Academic Choices," in 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2012). Download Bill Coplin, "Making Smart Academic Choices," in 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College (Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2012).
   
• George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, and Elizabeth J. Whitt, "Enriching educational experiences," in Student Success in College (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005). Download George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, and Elizabeth J. Whitt, "Enriching educational experiences," in Student Success in College (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005).
   
• Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, "Making it in the labor market," in Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). Download Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, "Making it in the labor market," in Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).
   A study of college graduates that demonstrates how greater attention to time on task and high impact practices during college resulted in career benefits on the job market later.
• Thomas L. Minnick, "Fourteen ways of looking at electives," in Virginia N. Gordon and Thomas L. Minnick, eds., Foundations: A Reader for New College Students, 2nd ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002). Download Thomas L. Minnick, "Fourteen ways of looking at electives," in Virginia N. Gordon and Thomas L. Minnick, eds., Foundations: A Reader for New College Students, 2nd ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002).
   
• Sherrie Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, "A few words about professors," in College Rules! How to study, survive, and succeed in college (Berkeley: Ten Speed press, 2011). Download Sherrie Nist-Olejnik and Jodi Patrick Holschuh, "A few words about professors," in College Rules! How to study, survive, and succeed in college (Berkeley: Ten Speed press, 2011).
   
• Ross Perlin, "The Explosion," in Intern Nation: How to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy (New York: Verso, 2012). Download Ross Perlin, "The Explosion," in Intern Nation: How to earn nothing and learn little in the brave new economy (New York: Verso, 2012).
  Ross Perlin is a contemporary critic of the practice of for-profit organizations employing unpaid interns. This chapter describes the history of the internship as a stepping stone between formal education and paid professional work in the twentieth century.
• Andrew Roberts, "Getting to graduate school" in The Thinking Student’s Guide to College (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). Download Andrew Roberts, "Getting to graduate school" in The Thinking Student’s Guide to College (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
   Remember that a spot in a great graduate program is "work" as well!
• Thomas Wolf, “Understanding nonprofit organizations,” in Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999). Download Thomas Wolf, “Understanding nonprofit organizations,” in Managing a Nonprofit Organization in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).
  If you are considering a career in a non-governmental organization or other nonprofit, this chapter can help you understand what to expect in terms of the structure that such organizations often follow and the constraints that such organizations often face.
• Eilene Zimmerman, "A gateway to a career through volunteering," New York Times (May 05, 2012). Download Eilene Zimmerman, "A gateway to a career through volunteering," New York Times (May 05, 2012).
   Ideas about breaking into a career through unpaid work.