Marcus Smith
Lantern Staff
Beginning on Monday, Oct. 2, the automotive program will begin offering paid internships. They began when the Assistant Professor of Automotive Technology Mark Jaye went around to different dealerships and invited them to his advisory counselor.
In the automotive program, students take only that class. The students take this class six hours a day, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. five days a week. Students do not need to go to any of the general education classes a typical student would take. It is a one year certified program, and sometimes two years if they want to earn their associate’s degree.
They can earn their one-year certificate, then return to work on their associate’s and make money at the same time.
“The students come in, get out, get to work and start making money and are able to come back and finish their associate’s while they are making an income to support their families or themselves,” Jaye said.
The internships are with dealerships such as Scholfield Honda, Rusty Eck Ford, Davis Moore Lincoln and Parks Chevrolet of Augusta, and are hoping to add more dealerships later on. The paid internships are completed by the students in the automotive program. The students are split up, with two students going to each dealership to finish their eight week programs with the dealerships.
Internships are offered to learn how to become an automotive technician. The paid internships give the students opportunities to shadow a professional mentor, using their toolbox and working in real life work scenarios. This gives the students the chance to see the processes used in the different dealerships, it gives the students an insight to what they could be doing for the rest of their lives and to see if this is what they want to spend their lives doing.
“Is this really the right fit for them?” Jaye said. “Is this really what they want to do? Are they just in love with cars because of the Fast and Furious videos, or is it because it is really what they want to do?”
More importantly, this gives the dealerships the chance to see the students’ work and look at them as potential employees. It allows the dealerships to see how the students do as interns and see how they mature through the year as well and potentially offer them jobs.