Pinned between outdated handouts and random club schedules, an internship flier hides on one of UNO’s many bulletin boards. To most, it’s overlooked as another silly advertisement. To curious students with sharp eyes, this flier is a golden ticket.
Internship opportunities are like holy grails for devoted students. They offer hands-on experience in a field they’re both curious about and unfamiliar with. By gaining workplace experience, students can be put to ease when deciding future career paths.
These hands-on experiences give students a chance to apply the knowledge they learn in school to real-life scenarios.
Internships show college admission officers responsibility and heightened interest. According to BigFutureStudent, applicants with internship experience stand out more amongst other candidates.
However, these programs aren’t easily accessible for everyone.
For starters, companies only have a few spots up for grabs. Most businesses or universities limit availability for only the most qualified. This makes internships incredibly competitive, with dozens of dedicated applicants vying for open positions.
Secondly, the application process is hardly unbiased. When it comes to high school programs, grades, passion, and community involvement all contribute to the final decision. However, some students loop around this application process through social networking.
By building connections, students can find friends in hidden sectors of any future field. These connections can create shortcuts to big opportunities down the line.
As a student lacking connections, I never seem to hear about these rich opportunities, and midnight searching on the internet never pans out. When I ask my peers how they landed their summer programs, they always tend to say something along the lines of “a friend of a friend,” or “my dad’s coworker.”
According to Forbes, a study revealed that 91% of students indicated that the most important factor in landing interviews was connections.
However, these connections can actually raise some ethical issues. Networking bias is the unconscious tendency to choose people we know over those we don’t, even if they’re more qualified. While this is useful for someone with connections, these biased acceptances actually strip dedicated workers of opportunities.
According to ResearchGate, cronyism—the tendency to choose associates or connections over more qualified individuals—reduces the incentive to take advantage of educational opportunities. They found that when connection bias exceeds a certain threshold, the competition and applicant pool increases, therefore decreasing the percentage of selected candidates and limiting students’ opportunities.
This bias especially impacts STEM and research fields. Most of these programs involve hands-on work with chemicals, tools, and data in labs. They offer students a chance to apply their skills and knowledge to meaningful analysis. Yet, when open spots are limited, these benefits are consistently inaccessible to students due to networking bias.
This favoritism also has a considerable impact on low-income students. Students from low-income homes use these big opportunities to climb social ladders and break economic barriers. They’re able to bolster their reputation, apply to more prestigious schools, and even go on to pursue higher education and lucrative careers.
However, this process is difficult without the aid of connections.Low-income students are less likely to have connections that can get them interviews or research positions. More connected schools are also more likely to hear and advertise mentorship and leadership programs, putting low-income areas without these institutional links at a disadvantage.
The lucky few are able to establish a brighter future for themselves through education, while many are unfortunately denied this chance.
The effect of networking bias has deprived responsible, passionate students of tremendous opportunities. Its influence strips low-income and interested students of the chance to have hands-on experience and limits college chances and availability.
However, there are programs disregarding connections and providing students with as many opportunities as they can.
The Explorers Program in Omaha is open to any student 15-21 years old interested in working in specific fields. Setting aside a small application fee, these programs offer students the chance to work with real, reputable companies and guarantee acceptance, allowing students of any socioeconomic background to apply.
While many students have worked hard to secure their competitive positions, many obtain them simply through connections. Therefore, the question still stands—if a student with connections snags a golden opportunity, would they have earned it regardless of who they know?
As long as acceptance depends on who you know, deserving students will continue to be rejected over lesser candidates and lower-income students will continue to be put at a disadvantage. Opportunities aren’t meant to be handed–they’re meant to be earned.