NACE externships

Surveys conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) indicate that identifying talent early through internships and co-ops is rated by 94.9 percent of employers as “very” or “extremely” important — so when COVID-19 forced many colleges and universities throughout the country to suspend or cancel their programs, The Modern College of Design made a commitment to its nearly 70 students enrolled in its Spring Externship course as part of their Associate Degree of Applied Business in Design program to offer the course.

Not only did the college’s required externship continue in a safe way, via remote learning, it gave students the unique opportunity to work with national and international organizations that they may not have had access to otherwise due to geographic constraints.

Organizations partnering with The Modern included G-PACT (Etters, PA); Transcend Education and Rev-X (New York, NY); Growhouse NYC (Brooklyn, NY); Reflex Design Collective (Oakland, CA); County Corp (Dayton, OH); Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (Dayton, OH); EPIC Lab (Melbourne, Australia); Dylan Teaches Finance (Sacramento, CA); and Five Rivers Health Centers (Dayton, OH).

Through their externships, students were able to participate in full-scale organizational rebranding initiatives, website audits and redesigns, social media awareness campaigns, and the creation of design assets for fundraising efforts. Ten students were able to take on additional leadership roles through their appointment as group creative leads, organizing meetings and client checkins utilizing remote technologies such as Google Meets, Zoom, and Slack. They delivered their final work to the organizations during virtual meetings held the week of May 18.

Said Kai Denton, a Class of 2020 graduate and member of the team working with G-PACT, a national nonprofit in Pennsylvania dedicated to raising awareness for gastroparesis: “We work in a way that involves us getting out our own personal ideas and then coming back to discuss, combining our concepts together and making something even stronger out of it.”

The Modern College of Design Externship Program has a number of educational objectives, including helping students: (1) experience different models of work related to specific areas of design; (2) acquire greater insight into the process of design; (3) develop a sense of professional responsibility; and (4) develop the awareness and ability to reflect on and learn from experiences. CONTRIBUTED