Griffith students have praised staff and organisations for their efforts ensuring a path to graduation, despite the coronavirus, which forced most teaching and learning activities online and threatened valuable industry internships.
On track to graduate in August,Bachelor of Public Relations / Bachelor of BusinessstudentStephanie Cormackwas setfor an excitingplacementin sports marketing when COVID-19’s social distancing measurescame into effect.
“My first internshipwasunfortunately cancelled becauseof coronavirus and they couldn’t have anyone working at the office andgiven the short notice,just weren’t prepared to do it online,”Stephanie said.
“Iwasreally lucky andwas insteadconnected with LarissaRose atGlowing Green Australia.
“Due toCOVID, Ionly started in week 7 and I’llnowgo rightthroughto the end ofweek12 to getmyrequired hours,however I’m working on an exciting live project that we’re looking to launch bytheend of the trimester.
“Itisamazing to get the real-world experienceand actually reallyexciting that whatI’m working on right now is actually going to benefitLarissa’s business.”
Glowing Green Australia(GGA)hasa strong history ofsupportingGriffith School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences students with internships and work experience opportunities in environmental management and climate change subjects, through to supporting media, communications and public relations study themes.
“We have pivotedsignificantly as we know internships are face-to-face engagement, so when Covid-19 kicked in we just flipped the model easily,” Director Larissa Rosesaid.
“We arecontinuing to offer internships via onlinemethods,where we can still deliver amazing learning outcomes and project deliverables for students to be involved in with GGA”.
“It has been easy for us to manage interns, andwejust ensured we could helpStephaniefinish her internship.
“We had our first meeting via zoom, established a plan,agoal and developed a project that Stephanie could work on for the 7 weeks remaining of her internship.
“We havetwoproject planning meetings every week, where weare working towardsdelivering an exciting project andplanning tolaunch that at the beginning of June.”
Stephanie’s internship with Glowing Green Australia is just one example of how Griffith has pivoted during COVID-19.
School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences placement officers worked quickly to source alternative options for students in similar circumstances to Stephanie.
53 of 57 industry/journalism internships were able to continue remotely and more than half of independent internships were arranged remotely.
GriffithBusiness School’s internship team, led by Dr Caroline Riot, also put together an agile project management approach for the current internship program, moving 76 placements online and ensuring 80% of students continued in an internship course.
The team has been staying in touch with workplace supervisors and students, which has also helped relieve students’ stress during these unpredictable times.
“Although workplaces moving online means there is no office to go to anymore, this has opened up opportunities to our students, even when they’re working virtually,” said Dr Riot.
“We are continuing to provide virtual access to our work-integrated learning program by identifying and exploring industry partners that are hosting virtual internships, and we are encouraging all students to network and connect with alumni.”
Larissa Rose sayspivoting online continues to support outcomes forherbusiness and for studentsin a win-win.
“We have embedded a strong philosophy that as a company we have a role and a duty of care to build the leaders of the future,” shesaid.
“If we want to do strive to build strong sustainable industries, then we need to ensure that we’re building the leaders of the future to sustain our industries and sector themes”.
Itsan opportunity StephanieCormackisincrediblygrateful for.
“My experience at Griffith has been awesomeandI’vesimilarlybeen so lucky withLarissa and how accommodating she has been,” she said.
“I am in my last year of a Bachelor of Business in PR and Communications,majoring in international relations and marketing and ideally after this I would love to go into operations or sports marketing.
“I think it will be interesting to see the state of the job market after I graduate in August but whatever comes I will deal with it.”