Internships Becoming Route To
Jobs For MBA Students
By Diana Kunde
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Forget the job interview. These
days, business students and employers
are paying almost as mueh attention
to the right internship.
In a tight labor market, companies
like the inside track that an internship
provides to the best and brightest job
candidates. And MBA students know
“The competition for the choice,
high-paid and high-profile internships
is quite intense," said Jamie King,
director of MBA career services at the
University of Texas at Austin.
Summer internships have long been
features of full-time MBA programs.
But in recent years, the quality of
these jobs has improved, university
officials say. “There are more real
projects instead of just doing the work
no one had time to do during the
Prosecutors Drop Murder Charges Against 7 In
Murray State Dorm Fire
College Press Exchange
MURRAY, Ky. (CTX) - Prosecutors
on Monday dropped murder and other
felony charges against seven people
accused of setting fire to a dormitory
at Murray State University that killed
one student and seriously injured a
second.
The September blaze originally was
blamed on hazing by members of a
rugby club. The fire killed 9-year-old
Michael Mingerof Niceville, Fla., and
left 21-year-old Michael Priddy of
Paducah, Ky., with severe burns on
his arms and back. Four other students
were hospitalized locally, and 10 more
were treated at the scene.
Prosecutor Mike Ward offered no
explanation when he asked a judge to
dismiss the charges, but he did say last
week that there may be a new suspect
in the case. According to the
Associated Press. Ward declined after
Mondav's
Flying ‘Jesus’
Assaulting Airline Attendant
By Michael James
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE - A federal judge
convicted a Maryland man Tuesday
of assaulting a flight attendant during
an “air rage” incident aboard a
Baltimore-bound plane, where the
man touched off pandemonium when
he went berserk after proclaiming
himself to be Jesus. Judge Catherine
C. Blake also
rejected a
defense plea
William
Trammel, 22,
be found not
criminally
responsible.
Those on
board testified
during the
five-day trial
that Trammel had been polite and
calm for the first several hours of the
flight, which originated in Los
Angeles. But as the plane approached
Baltimore, the burly college student
left his seat and began blessing nearby
passengers.
He told a flight attendant that he
was Jesus and, when she asked him
to take his seat and prepare for
landing, he replied that God had
ordered him to remain standing for the
rest of the trip. At one point he tried
to get into the cockpit, saying he
year,” said Peter Veruki, director of
career planning and placement for
Vanderbilt University’s Owen
Graduate School of Business in
Nashville, Tenn.
At the same time, the internship has
become more of a dress rehearsal for
the real thing. “More and more
companies are using the internship
program as a recruiting tool,” Veruki
said. The trend has accelerated over
the last two to three years as the job
market for top MBAs has tightened.
“It’s often called the three-month
interview,” he said.
In fact, some firms have gone so
far as to cut back their offers to
second-year MBA students, shifting
their recruiting muscle to first-year
interns, said Karen Dowd, who
researches hiring at top graduate
business schools for the consulting
firm Brecker & Merryman in New
York. “It’s a very aggressive game,”
she said.
hearing to give specific reasons for his
request, saying only that an individual
not charged “did some things that put
a monkey wrench in our case.”
Investigators initially said they
believed that members of the rugby
club set the fire as a hazing prank
because all seven defendants - five of
whom attended Murray State - either
belonged to the group or knew some
of its members. Felony charges
against the seven included arson,
assault and complicity. None of the
defendants was in jail on Monday, and
the only one charged with murder, 23-
year-old Fred McGrath, who was not
a student at Murray State, was freed
on bail.
Despite the dismissals, four
defendants still face misdemeanor
charges of falsely reporting a fire,
accusations that stem from telephone
calls made before the blaze broke out.
Defense attorneys have argued that
the prank calls were a coincidence and
plane was about to crash, the flight
attendant testified.
Passengers became unnerved by
Trammel’s behavior and some began
yelling at him. At one point a flight
attendant ordered him to sit down and
put his seat belt on or she would sit
on him and put it on for him,
according to testimony. Moments
later, Trammel was “flailing around
with great strength” as crew members
n I>—^
tried to subdue him, Evans said. One
of the flight attendants, Renee Sheffer,
said Trammel threw her across three
rows of seats and punched her ir. the
face.
After several minutes of intense
panic on board, in which several
passengers were screaming and
children were crying, Trammel was
restrained and the plane landed.
The felony charge of which he was
convicted, interfering with a flight
attendant, carries a maximum penalty
of 20 years in prison. Airline officials
National Cam
Convicted of
Nor is the phenomenon limited to
MBA programs. As top schools have
gradually gone to a five-year master’s
degree in accounting with a winter
internship in the fourth year, intern
recruiting has become critical, said
Tanya Miller, who scouted interns for
Ernst & Young’s Dallas offices.
“It’s what we’d like to see as our
primary recruiting tool,” said Miller,
who estimates that 99 percent of Ernst
& Young’s master’s degree interns in
accounting end up working full time
for the firm after graduation. All this
means the pressure begins almost the
minute an MBA candidate hits the
campus during his or her first year.
Recruiters arrive in the fall for get
to-know-you sessions, while students
hone their resumes and start
networking. Right after winter break,
the courting gets serious.
Consider Jake Horstman, 26, of
Baltimore, who’s enrolled as a first
year MBA student at Vanderbilt’s
not evidence of any involvement
with setting the fire.
Some defendants said they
want Ward and other
investigators to apologize for
falsely accusing them - words
Ward said they’re not likely to
hear. The defendants have little
recourse because prosecutors
and police are shielded from
civil lawsuits by a concept
known as “sovereign immunity.”
McGrath told the AP that an
apology wouldn’t be enough to
ease all the pain the charges
against him have caused. "For
(Ward) to apologize is
patronizing,” he said. “He can’t
give me and our family our
Christmas back; he can’t give us
our New Year’s or Thanksgiving
back; he can’t give us the
attorney fees. Let him sit in jail
for 26 days for something he
didn’t do.”
World and Nation
say stiff penalties are needed to deter
further incidents of “air rage," the
term used to describe a growing
problem of attacks on planes
worldwide.
Barry J. Pollack and James Wyda,
the assistant U.S. public defenders
representing Trammel, argued that a
severe bipolar disorder caused
Trammel to break with himself and
reality. "He was Jesus Christ at that
point,” Wyda
said, adding:
“He could not
She cited
his ability to control himself within
moments of being restrained and to
write a fairly accurate account of the
incident about 40 minutes after
landing in Baltimore.
Trammel, a Silver Spring resident
and one-time football player at Santa
Monica College in California,
slumped over and buried his head in
his hands when the verdict was read.
Minutes later he hugged his father and
grandfather, both ministers.
Sentencing is scheduled for April 9.
Owen School. He figures he’s spent
about 15 hours a week on his job hunt
since school began. “If you have four
courses, you should view the fifth as
job search,” he said. With four years
of experience in commercial banking,
Horstman wants to move toward
investment banking or finance, and
the internship could help do that. Most
of all, he wants a solid job offer.
“If I could get both a good summer
experience and an offer, that would
be ideal,” he said. “With all the time
and investment, it would be nice to
return to school [next fall] with
something in hand.” Whether or not
he accepts, getting an offer “increases
your demand,” he said.
Statistics on the relationship
between MBA internships and job
offers are hard to come by. But at
Vanderbilt’s Owen School, between
20 percent and 25 percent of the past
two year’s MBA graduates ended up
working for their internship employer
Colleges should do more to
stop sports gambling
College Press Exchange
SAN ANTONIO (CPX) - The worst
problem affecting college sports
today may be illegal gambling, and
colleges and universities should do
more to crack down on it, said
NCAA president Cedric Dempsey.
“I challenge you to send a clear
message that your athletics programs
will not be used as the poker stake
in sports wagering and point
shaving,”
Dempsey told delegates at the
National Collegiate Athletic
Association’s annual convention on
Sunday. “We, all of us in college
sports and higher education, must
turn up the heat. We must take the
English Immersion is an
Unexpected Hit
By Louis Sahagun
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES- At elementary
schools scattered across Los Angeles,
teachers are delivering promising
reports that their students are learning
English more quickly than anticipated
six months after the implementation
of California’s anti-bilingual
education law, Proposition 227.
“I honestly didn’t expect to see
them achieve as well as they are
doing,” said Jose Posada, bilingual
education coordinator at Los Angeles
Elementary School in Koreatown.
“Many of us who believed in the
bilingual education program were
scared about the unknowns,” he said.
"Now we’re saying, ‘Well, maybe it’s
not so bad. Maybe it’s time we start
talking about the positives.’ *’
In interviews at 13 Los Angeles
Unified School District campuses
with large immigrant populations,
primary grade teachers said their
students are absorbing verbal English
at a surprising pace. Some children
are even taking the next step and
learning to read and write in English.
Still, many of these teachers and
other educators question whether
most of the youngsters have acquired
the language skills necessary to
comprehend math, reading or history
lessons in English. Some suggest that
students are imitating, or parroting.
appreciate the
wrongfulness
of his conduct."
But the
judge, while
acknowledging
that Trammell
“needs help,”
did not agree.
us News Th
Thun
after graduating. “At least 50 percent
get offers,” said Veruki of the MBA
career office.
Does all this prematurely lock a
student into a choice? It can happen,
said Lois Jacobs, director of MBA
career services at Southern Methodist
University’s Edwin L. Cox School of
Business, who encourages MBA
students to view the internship as part
of their education. Most MBA
students are career changers, Jacobs
said. An engineer wants to acquire
managerial skills, or a marketing
major wants to move into finance. For
these students, the ideal internship is
one that allows them to bridge into a
new specialty. Yet recruiters often lean
toward someone who already has the
relevant experience, she said. "So it’s
more than a little tricky” finding the
right fit, she said.
Despite all the matchmaking,
students and employers sometimes
learn that they don’t want a permanent
initiative to help uncover student
bookie operations on our campuses.”
The integrity of collegiate sports
programs is already under fire and
will continue to lose respect if
schools don’t do more to fight illegal
gambling, he said. Dempsey also
warned school officials not to “look
the other way” when they know that
boosters are betting on games and
that students are wagering on
campus.
“We have had more revelations of
illegal sports wagering and point
shaving in the last year,” Dempsey
added. “And, regrettably, we may
have seen only the tip of the iceberg.”
Referring to point-shaving scandals
in basketball at Northwestern
their English-speaking teachers rather
than thinking in the language. Many
worry that the children are falling
behind in their studies as they struggle
with a new language and that they will
not be ready to enter mainstream
English classes within one year, as
Proposition 227 calls for.
The depth of their English skills
will become clearer after they take the
Stanford 9 standardized tests in the
spring. The test results, coupled with
new state guidelines for rating English
language development, will help
schools determine at year’s end which
students should be placed in
mainstream classes and which should
remain in English immersion another
year. The second-year option is
allowed by Proposition 227.
In the meantime, educators are
expressing cautious optimism that if
students can say it, they get it. “We’re
off to a good start,” said Maria Ochoa,
district administrator for language
acquisition.
Kris Gutierrez, associate professor
of education at University of
California, Los Angeles and a
specialist in culture and learning in
urban schools, agreed to a point.
“Imitation can be one of the first
stages of learning, if it is part of a
larger strategy,” she said. "But the
development of oral language skills
doesn’t tell us much about
i arv 14 , 19*
*9 The Behren
relationship. Steve Puricelli, an
engineer in his second year at
Vanderbilt’s MBA program, is
philosophical about discovering
that he didn’t want to be in
aerospace, after a summer
internship in Los Angeles for
Allied Signal Inc.
“I’d been in an engineering role
but had never really been on the
business side. I learned a lot about
myself what I’m good at, what I
enjoy and what I don’t enjoy. I
gained a lot from that,” said
Puricelfi, who is now targeting
a range of manufacturers in his job
hunt. “I have a lot of good stories
from this summer. I have
something for the resume,”
Puricelli said. “There are a lot of
jobs out there.”
University and Arizona State
University, Dempsey said illegal
gambling is not a victimless crime.
“Ask Steven Smith or Dion Lee if
what happened to them was a game,”
he said. “Ask their former
universities if they feel victimized.
Ask other student-athletes who
competed with Smith and Lee if they
have been made to feel guilty by
association.”
Lee pleaded guilty for scheming
to fix three Northwestern basketball
games in 1995 in exchange for
money. Smith, the second career
leading scorer at Arizona State, is
awaiting sentencing for his role in a
1994 point-shaving scandal.
comprehension.” Gutierrez said she
also has heard positive reports from
teachers, but still harbors some
concerns. "I wish (the teachers) were
saying, ‘Juan is reading four books he
wasn’t reading before,’ or that their
kids were taking more books home,”
she said. “If they were really getting
turned on by English, they’d be
checking out books and at least
pretending to read them.”
Many teachers lament having to
water down core subjects such as
science and social studies for students
who are just beginning to read and
write in English. On the other hand,
they are relieved that youngsters who
spoke little or no English only months
ago are generally at ease, even
enthusiastic about their post-
Proposition 227 reading and writing
assignments. “I expected that their
self-esteem would be affected, and
that they would feel inhibited, give up
easily,” said Yomy Duran, a second
grade teacher at Dena Elementary
School. “Instead, they are excited,
motivated.”
“One-fourth of my class can write.
Yes, there are grammatical errors, but,
hey, you read it,” she added. “My
biggest fear is whether I’m doing
enough for them. Can I do more? But
the fear of them standing still
academically is gone.”
leee Beacon - P