Agalia Ardyasa, like many UW-Madison students, thought her summer was all set. Ardyasa, who hails from Indonesia, had arranged to return for a second paid summer internship with Best Buy. She’d even excitedly begun planning her housing situation, in response to the company’s introductory email.
And then the phone call came.
“I knew something bad was going to happen,” says Ardyasa, an economics major who’s set to graduate in 2021 with a business certificate. “I was prepared for it.”
Ardyasa was among the first in her friend group to experience a cancelled internship, now increasingly common as the economy reels from the global COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of heading off to internships and job opportunities beginning this month, taking the first confident steps of their post-collegiate careers, many students are scrambling to re-group and prepare for an economy now in recession.
Fortunately, those students—including Ardyasa--have a resource ready to help them: SuccessWorks, the College of Letters & Science’s professional development center. As the job and internship market changed rapidly in the spring, SuccessWorks has adapted its array of offerings to meet the changing needs of L&S students—not only students about to graduate, but also new UW alumni facing uncertainty in an upended job market.
From one-on-one online appointments with career advisors, to new virtual workshops on cover letters and resume-building, to virtual visits with local businesses like ZenDesk, the SuccessWorks team has worked hard to adapt its current services—and add new ones—in this new environment.
“In many ways, we’re already up to speed in helping students in this situation,” says Rebekah Paré, Associate Dean for SuccessWorks. “This is what we were created to do.”
SuccessWorks staff conducted a survey of Class of 2020 UW-Madison students and discovered that about a quarter of respondents had rescinded job offers, while more than a third had an internship cancelled. In short, the anxiety and stress graduating students typically feel is now as much environmental as it is career-related, and that’s had an impact on the type of assistance SuccessWorks has shifted to offer.
“Our advising has adapted to this change,” says Paré. “We are focusing on resilience. We’re offering hope. We’re reminding our students that they have a robust set of skills that are still in demand. Despite the challenging circumstances, many employers are still hiring for jobs and internships, so we’re connecting students with those opportunities.”
Emmeline Prattke is SuccessWorks’ career and internship specialist for the Government, Policy, International Affairs and Law career community. A relative newcomer to the SuccessWorks team (she began in January), she is adapting, like the students she advises, to the online-only environment. The big things she’s been stressing with students have been the importance of networking and the importance of finding a way to stay productive—whether that’s through personal research projects that give new insight to an area of professional interest and demonstrate analytical writing skills, online training programs to develop new technical skills or virtual volunteer work through local nonprofits and student clubs.
“If you can show that you’re motivated and can find creative ways to continue gaining experience, that makes a huge difference,” says Prattke. “It shows potential employers that, even in challenging times, you have the skills to thrive.”
Even before COVID-19, Agalia Ardyasa was already connected with SuccessWorks. As the job and internship market began to change, a SuccessWorks student advisor helped Ardyasa revamp her resume, a service she found especially valuable, and also encouraged her to look for short-term projects (or micro-internships) that employers might offer that would keep her building experience and skills.
“The conversation was really a two-way street,” says Ardyasa. “They were able to learn from me as well.”
For Ardyasa, resolution, at least for the short term, came in the form of a remote internship with an investment company in Singapore, an opportunity she found through her parents’ network of contacts.
The biggest things she’s learned from going through this: That SuccessWorks is there for her, and that she’s not alone.
“Everyone is going through the same thing,” she says. “Don’t be hard on yourself. No matter what your situation, there are an abundance of resources on campus that you can make the best use of, including SuccessWorks!"