Waynesburg University recently entered into a partnership with the Washington Center, an internship program based in Washington, D.C. that places college students with internship sites in different fields all over the capital.

Students who apply to the Washington Center can receive an entire semester’s worth of credits by participating in an internship four days a week, in addition to one day being dedicated to the program’s “Lead Colloquium” course in professional development and one academic course on a weekday evening. The center accepts students from all majors. Representatives from the center visited campus last Tuesday to meet with different academic departments and explain the opportunities they can provide.

“Students, a lot of times, rely on faculty for advice, and rightly so,” Saima Siddiqui, managing director of College and University Relations at the Washington Center said. “So, they look to them for guidance and faculty are really critical to make this work, credit-wise and otherwise, so we find that it is really, really helpful when we are able to speak to department chairs.”

This trust in faculty is precisely what the Washington Center hopes to build between students and its organization, Siddiqui said. At the center, students can complete an internship without worrying about living on their own with extra expenses—they have a housing facility just for interns.

“A lot of graduates of our program say it’s like a career launch on training wheels,” she said. “You know, instead of just graduating college your senior year and then moving to a big city and having to find your own place to live and having to figure stuff out, it’s a place where we have student services just like you have here at college.”

Cara Gluck, coordinator for College and University Relations, was a graduate of the program before she started working for the Washington Center. She said completing her internship and the Lead Colloquium with the guidance of the center truly kick-started her career.

“I was really just ready to jump into the workforce,” said Gluck. “I had a really great internship site supervisor, who was actually my manager at my site, and she was really great at mentoring me and helping me develop. You know, she was a reference for me when I first started applying for jobs. So, it really made me feel that I was ready to enter the workforce and gave me those tools that I needed.”

Unlike a typical internship, Siddiqui said, the Washington Center works with both internship supervisors and students, this creates effective mentorships and maximizes the overall experience. That, in addition to the Lead Colloquium, helps guide students to preparing for the professional world after college.

“What Cara’s describing is a hallmark of the Washington Center and why doing an internship with us is different from doing an internship at just a regular internship,” said Siddiqui.

After being in existence for 44 years, and with an alumni network of approximately 50,000, Siddiqui also said that students are exposed to diversity that they may otherwise have never experienced.

“It creates this bond and this forced diversity that students don’t get on their home campuses, and we actually found that—Gallup just did a survey of our alumni—and that immersion is one of their biggest takeaways and one of their most positive things of the Washington Center…” she said.

The Washington Center connects with campuses across the country and internationally, only accepting students through colleges that have an affiliation. They were connected with Waynesburg after a student applied for their program before a partnership was established, and then began having conversations with the university staff.

Since then, Sarah Bell, academic communications coordinator, has been appointed as the Waynesburg University official liason with the Washington Center. Siddiqui said Bell will help students prepare their applications and coordinate with faculty members to make the most out of their internship experiences.

The representatives encouraged students to contact Bell and apply on the center’s website.

“It’s a great middle step,” she said. “It’s a great way for them to sort of figure out what they want or don’t want and be in a professional environment and have support.”