Student Internships & Career Exploration

Partners in Education and its programs are administered by the Santa Barbara County Education Office.

internship interview

"[We] benefited as well. We were able to examine our cross training techniques and our time management efforts." -Santa Barbara Teachers Federal Credit Union

Partners has recently launched a comprehensive internship program that provides paid, experiential learning opportunities to disadvantaged students. Through partnerships with local businesses, we are able to place students in supportive work environments where they are able to learn more about their prospective career fields while gaining valuable employment experience. The goal of this program is to address the following specific needs:

The difficulty disadvantaged or academically underachieving students faced competing for existing jobs or internship opportunities
The lack of jobs/internships that provided the real world experiential learning opportunities necessary for these students in particular to remain engaged in school and working toward graduation
The need within this population for improvement in the area of soft-skills required for them to be ready to work in a professional setting
The need for students in this income bracket to be compensated for their work
The need among school site staff for assistance in building substantive and long lasting relationships with local employers to create such opportunities and to train and support host sites in developing work experiences that are truly significant and educational

Screening and Training
Prior to being accepted to the Internship Program, all students must successfully complete our application process. This includes several in-depth essay questions, a recommendation from a teacher or other school staff member and an interview. In addition, all students must have at least 2.0 GPA to be considered. Students who are accepted then complete six weeks of job readiness training on the following topics:

Week 1: Resumes & Applications
Week 2: Interview Skills
Week 3: Workplace Attire
Week 4: Customer Service
Week 5: Business Etiquette
Week 6: Budgeting & Time/ Money Management

Students are then ready to enter one of two different internship tracks.

Track 1: Skill Development Interns
Ideally, this track would be for students who have completed a Career Technical Education course, demonstrating proficiency in the class. This experience gives students a base from which to expand during their internship experience of 8 weeks. Interns will receive $8 an hour for a minimum of 80 hours of work over the 8 week period, paid monthly. We ask employers to match the interns’ wages by paying $4 for each hour the intern works. The remaining amount ($4 per hour) is being paid by generous contributions from the Orfalea Foundations, the AT&T Foundation and Yardi Systems, Inc.

Track 2: Career Exploration Interns
This track targets students who lack the proficiencies or concrete career goals possessed by students in the Skill Development track. Students will participate in an eight-week extended career exploration program. These experiences will be based around general interest areas. During the eight-week session, students will meet once a week with a facilitator who will accompany them on trips to eight separate businesses or organizations. Each visit will last two hours and will cover a different aspect of a field (i.e. for business group- marketing, human resources, public relations, management, etc.) or a different manifestation of a skill (i.e. arts careers- photographer, theater stage manager, artist, muralist, actor, radio producer, children’s art nonprofit, etc.). At the conclusion of the career exploration program, students will have 16 hours of exposure to eight different career possibilities within their area of interest. Interns will receive a $250 stipend which will be covered by contributions from the Orfalea Foundations, the AT&T Foundation and Yardi Systems, Inc.

We are eager to hear from businesses who are interested in being involved in our current efforts to place interns, and also from those who want to support our efforts to expand our services in this area. Please contact Michelle Magnusson at (805) 964-4710 x4417 or email mmagnusson@sbceo.org.