A Look at the Numbers: School of Business Interns Consistently Achieve Excellence

Highly motivated. Efficient and organized. Able to grasp complex concepts. Initiates ideas that helps the business grow. 

These are just a few of the words and phrases used by internship supervisors to describe Meredith College students from the School of Business. “Most all of the comments received were similar to these. I probably have 100 more I could share,” said department head, Nathan Woolard.

In a recent analysis conducted by Woolard, it was found that 76% of Meredith business school interns were given an “excellent” rating by their supervisors for general quality of work. 

All business majors at Meredith must complete an internship credit to graduate, and Woolard serves as the instructor of record for the experience. Business students have held internships in a wide range of companies and organizations around the Triangle to fulfill the requirement. Some of these companies include Cisco, SAS, and Credit Suisse.

At the end of each internship, a required course component is an evaluation completed by the supervisor. Woolard is responsible for analyzing the data for the business school’s AACSB accreditation.

Since the summer of 2017, 144 internship providers have completed the evaluation. There are five categories related to quality of work. These ratings range from 1-4, with the lowest rating being unsatisfactory and the highest being excellent. 

Woolard provided a snapshot of the average results:

• “General quality of work,” 3.699

• “Volume of work meeting standards,” 3.609

• “Willingness to follow directions and suggestions,” 3.776

• “Ability to research and analyze information,” 3.645

• “Overall understanding of the business (mission, vision),” 3.601

Of the 144 supervisors who completed evaluations, none of them rated Meredith interns as unsatisfactory for the first category while 109 selected the highest rating, excellent.

“That’s a long way of saying you should probably hire our grads,” said Woolard.