Boston University College of Communication juniors Lauren Grunstein and Stephanie Gurtman were at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Cambridge before most of their peers woke up for class Monday. They were waiting to speak to marketing strategist David Meerman Scott about getting featured in his next book, Grunstein said.
Grunstein and Gurtman entered the business world when they launched their website, internshipratings.com, in February 2008, but they are still, first and foremost, BU students maintaining full course loads, Grunstein said.
“Our parents were smart enough to know that if we took [a semester] off, we wouldn’t be back,” Grunstein said. “They didn’t give us the option.”
The website asks students to rate their internships on a scale from one to five coffee cups, fitting the site’s slogan, “Is it worth the coffee?” It also encourages reviewers to write comments about their experience. The website covers all types of internships – from media jobs to engineering jobs – all over the United States.
Grunstein and Gurtman spent the fall of their sophomore year working out the legal and operational details of their website, after meeting in their COM 101 introductory class.
Lawyers advised the girls not to tell anyone about the site until it went live, so the girls had the additional challenge of hiding everything from their friends, Gurtman said.
“It was a messy first few months,” Gurtman said.
It can be difficult to get students to rate their own internships, but professors and the Office of Career Services have been very encouraging and helped spread the word, Gurtman said.
The website currently has a lot of reviews posted because the summer is typically a time when many students have internships, Gurtman said. Now, Gurtman and Grunstein are focusing on growth. They are attending networking and public relations conferences and notifying all businesses rated on the site. They will also run a booth at CollegeFest 2008 at the Hynes Convention Center on Sept. 27 and 28.
“It’s hard to know where the site will take us, but it’s definitely a long-term project,” Grunstein said. “There’s a lot of potential for growth.”
American University Director of Experiential Education Francine Blume said she recommends the site to her students because she thinks it is a great tool to search for quality internships.
“The premise is great, because considering other students’ opinions and experiences is one of several important ways that students get a sense of the quality of an internship,” she said.
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences junior Rachel Bye said she supports the site and has rated her own internship.
“I really hope this website continues to expand,” she said. “It obviously gets better and more useful with more ratings. If everyone takes the two minutes to fill out [the review], this site could really help out the college population.”
COM sophomore Caty Bennett said she thought the website was helpful.
“College students should definitely take advantage of any internship help sites, since sometimes we can get stuck in really unfortunate summer internships,” she said.
