CLEVELAND — Campus is unusually quiet at Case Western Reserve University. But behind the scenes, people like Drew Poppleton, director of postgraduate planning, have been working tirelessly all summer long.
“Our realization very quickly was that, OK, students are definitely going to need help and we need to mobilize to create opportunities for them and think a little differently,” Poppleton said.
Every year, the university sets asides $30,000 for humanities students to pursue unpaid internships.
“Because a lot of times they’re [interning at] nonprofits but they’re not paid, so a lot of students can’t accept those because they need to earn money they need to support themselves,” he explained.
This year, the university increased funding for that initiative and launched several other programs to fund internships and research projects as paid offers fell through — giving students stipends to support themselves this summer.
Students like Shvetali Thatte, whose undergraduate research project at the Cleveland Clinic was cut short due to the pandemic. Without that opportunity, Thatte — a sophomore neuroscience major — had to head back home to Chicago.
Disappointing, until she started scouring online and was able to land not one but two virtual internships.
“The first one is Clinova, which is a UK-based company and the other is a neuro-tech startup — and both of them are smaller companies so it’s a lot more hands on, which is nice,” Thatte said.
The experience is great, but the downside is — neither internship was paid.
That’s where Case’s new program came through and gave Shvetali the funding she needed.
The university has also linked more than a hundred students with short-term paid projects with various companies in Cleveland and around the country.
“It’s been amazing,” Poppleton said. “The response from students and employers was beyond what we imagined.”
