Undergraduate Admissions

I first talked to a lot of the students that already participated in the Internship program. I got a lot of feedback; they said it was a great way to get a real-world experience and figure out what you want to do with your life—apply what you learned at ILR to the real world and figure out what you want as a career.

I knew that I wanted to do my internship close to home in Mississippi. The ILR Off-Campus Programs office told me about the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). I had already thought about the EEOC from taking human resource management last year as a sophomore and I thought it would be a good way to be involved in human resource management and enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

It was a great experience. I started with “intake.” At intake, I helped interview employees who came to file a charge against their employer. The most exciting part of intake was talking with the people coming into the office every day. At that point, you can apply what you learned in human resource management. It made me realize that I was applying what I learned in class. I knew the answers.

I then I went into “on-site investigation” where you interview the employees and people from management and investigate the charge. I also looked at cases where the EEOC had requested information from the employer. They sent in their information plus the affidavits and other information from the charging party. I then looked at all the information and gave a suggestion of what type of finding I thought the case should have.

I then went into “mediation” and I sat in on mediation sessions with the mediator. I actually got to see some of the cases from walk-in on day one and then, a couple of months later it would go to mediation. The interesting part was to see how it actually ended; to see the whole case from beginning to end. In my opinion, that was the best part of the whole process.

The EEOC Office was great because I had the opportunity to interview people on my own. I had someone at EEOC make sure that I did it the correct way but I also had the opportunity to do it on my own and to see how it feels and to know how to do it. When you do it on your own, it’s different than when you’re watching someone else do it. You have to make the decisions and you never know what type of person you will be dealing with; what type of situation they are in. There were a lot of different situations and you have to cope with people and their emotions and their frustrations in dealing with an employer and you have to be remain objective at all times.

My internship was actually more than what I thought it was going to be. Everybody has their own perception of what an internship is. Some think you are just typing and filing things. I did not think I was going to have a very significant role in the organization, but actually I did. And towards the end of it, they were actually asking me what I thought about cases and that made me feel like I was a part of the organization instead of just an intern.

My internship enriched me a lot because it helped me to decide that I want to go into human resource management. I initially thought that I was going to go to law school after graduating from ILR but I changed my mind. I decided I want to get a master’s in human resource management and do that for awhile before I go to law school. Now, I’m looking into universities that offer a master’s programs such as the ILR School. I want to pursue getting an MILR degree. The credit internship program helped me to see that I wanted to have an influence in the workplace and to also see human resource management as the best way to do that.