What is the value of experiential learning? And, what are the experiences that really matter for learners and employers? In this episode, Beth Merenstein, Associate Vice President for Community Engagement & Experiential Learning at Central Connecticut State University, joins us to share why experiential learning can have a significant impact on institutions, learners and the broader community
Matt Sterenberg (00:01.166)
Beth, welcome to the podcast.
Beth Merenstein (00:04.174)
Thanks Matt, I’m excited to be here.
Matt Sterenberg (00:06.618)
So we’re talking about experiential learning, work-based learning. Tell us a little bit about your role. How did you get into this? And did you always grow up thinking, I really want to get into experiential learning?
Beth Merenstein (00:20.654)
Yeah, I really, grew up thinking I can’t wait to be an associate vice president at an institution of higher ed. Yes, every young child’s dream. Okay, so I’ll work backwards, I guess. So I serve as, I have sort of two roles. I serve as the associate vice president for community engagement and experiential learning. And I also serve as the executive director of our Center for Community Engagement and Social Research.
Matt Sterenberg (00:26.656)
Every young kid’s dream, yeah.
Beth Merenstein (00:49.294)
And my background is a sociology PhD. And so I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and went to college in Massachusetts and then moved out to California and got really interested in immigration work and sort of how new immigrants to this country learn about race.
and racism and that pointed me in the direction of sociology. I did not major in sociology. I love to tell students that they never know where life is going to take them. I tried out I think four or five different majors before I landed on English and that was because I was a good writer and I liked to read. So you really don’t know where life is going to take you and after talking to a lot of really smart people they suggested that I go to grad school in sociology and so that’s what I did.
And when I ended up at the University of Connecticut, and I think I learned pretty quickly that
most PhD programs are very theoretical, and I wanted it to be more hands-on and practical. I thought that to me, sociology was answering questions that we have about society. So I thought that the work we were doing should be answering those questions and helping to, you know, I was very idealistic. I thought we were going to like go out and fix the world. It wasn’t quite like that. But I managed to find some people who did approach the work that way.
And so my work has always had that thread of how can we take what we’re learning, take our evaluation of society and then help to make things a little bit better.
Beth Merenstein (02:39.486)
And I think it’s the best way to learn, for me at least, was always how hands-on can you be. So I ended up getting a job at Central Connecticut State University many, many years ago in sociology. And I helped develop in the sociology department our sort of first, what we call, community-engaged courses where the students…
did research out in the community that benefited a community partner in some way, developed by and with the community partner. So it’s not like we go and say, this is the checklist of what you need to do. It was, what do you need help with? What can we work on with you? What would be beneficial to you? And so I created a two-course sequence where the students learn about how to do the research.
And then they also learn about whatever substantive topic we’re learning. So for example, we did an evaluation of a homeless shelter where the folks at the shelter, the directors were struggling because people were only supposed to be staying at the shelter for a short period of time, but they were staying for a ferry.
long time. So the students got to interview the clients who were at the shelter to help understand what was sort of the hold up, if you will. And then we did an evaluation report for the shelter, right? So it’s hands on. It’s not just sitting in a class learning about homelessness, which they did, but then they also got to do the actual hands on work. And so I taught that class for like, not just about the homeless shelter, but other iterations of it for like,
seven or eight years. And then I started to move into administration levels. And I know, I know I left it behind a little bit, although I do still get to teach one class every semester, which is awesome. And so yeah, I moved into administration and now I get to do that, but on a large scale. So for the whole institution.
Matt Sterenberg (04:25.476)
Shame on you. Shame on you.
Matt Sterenberg (04:42.574)
Well, you, sort of answered one of my first questions, is why is experiential learning an impactful practice? And kind of answered it. Like we, the theory is great. We, we have to learn all of that, but the practice of all these things. And as I think about, if you were to levy a criticism to higher ed, it would be, you have all these theories, but you’ve never actually really done it. You know, it gets messy. gets complicated.
Beth Merenstein (05:12.43)
Yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (05:12.482)
And for future employers to be able to see the application of learning is so critical. But what other impacts do you see or how have you seen the impact on students and their ability to take what they’ve learned at CCSU and take it to whether it’s grad school or to a job?
Beth Merenstein (05:32.012)
Yep. I mean, I think you’re absolutely right. think the issue and look, I think maybe 50, 60 years ago, it was okay if that’s what higher ed was doing, if higher ed was primarily theoretical and getting us, you know, just the sort of understanding of what the different areas, the disciplines, whatever they may be. But now, we can’t be living in that bubble anymore. Employers are looking to have
their future employees have real hands-on experience, not just what is referred to as book learning, right? They want the students, the future employees to have that knowledge, but they wanna know that they actually have experienced some of these different things. And what we’re actually learning is that…
they don’t necessarily need it to be in the area that they’re going into. They just need to know that the students understand the connections between what they’re learning in the classroom and what’s actually happening out in the real world, wherever that real world might be. so it’s all, it’s the employers are looking for that. And then the students are looking for that. And you think about the world that, you know, this sort of typical demographic of college kids is growing up in.
You know, and some faculty like to complain, there are short attention spans and I need to like entertain them. And we’ve been hearing that for decades now, right? I just actually went to a summit today on workforce development. And first of all, it was great. It was so insightful, but it was hard for me to sit there for six hours and just listen.
It’s very difficult for that to be the only mechanism that people are learning. So that has to be just one part of it. And then you bring in the hands-on in a variety of ways. And it’s just so much more impactful and so much more beneficial to students.
Matt Sterenberg (07:35.67)
And take away the, you know, preparing students for whatever they do next, just in terms of what they want to do or what they choose to pursue being actually exposed to it. I went to school for secondary education and you know, experiential learning. It’s like not really in secondary ed because it’s already built in. don’t call it experiential learning. We just call it student teaching. Right. So it’s like, and they try to get you exposed to that.
Beth Merenstein (07:45.612)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (07:50.562)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (07:56.974)
Right. Yup. Yup.
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (08:03.256)
least in my experience, it was like junior year, you’re going to be like a student aid and then you’re going to be student teaching your senior year. And it’s like, yeah, those experiences are invaluable. And I can’t tell you how many people it took them their junior year to realize they didn’t like children, you know, so it’s like, why aren’t we doing more of this? And I’ll be honest, like, when I was choosing a major, I’m like, really no concept of what a job actually was. And I worked in high school and college.
Beth Merenstein (08:07.714)
Yep.
Beth Merenstein (08:17.454)
Right.
Beth Merenstein (08:31.245)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (08:32.1)
But in terms of, like, what is business? Honestly, I was like, what is a business degree? What does it mean to do sales, to do marketing? Like, yeah, no concept whatsoever. And to be able to be exposed to it, I think is a massive thing. Why do you think employers, you mentioned, you know, maybe we could have got away with just the theory before. Is there a shift in what employers want? Why is there a shift or is it just?
Beth Merenstein (08:37.536)
Right. Finance. what does that mean?
Matt Sterenberg (09:00.846)
we’re paying more attention, they’ve always wanted this and now we just maybe have a name for it or the resources to make it happen. Like why today does this feel more pressing than it maybe did years ago?
Beth Merenstein (09:06.338)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (09:13.408)
Yeah, I think that’s a fantastic question. think first of all, it actually relates a little bit to what you were just saying. There are some fields in which it was always just par for the course, right? There was no way they were going to send future teachers out into the world without that hands on experience. And we have a phenomenal story. Pricking people.
Matt Sterenberg (09:31.096)
Yeah, you’re phlebotomist. You’re like, I hope you had some experiential learning. You’re about to pull some blood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Beth Merenstein (09:37.43)
Right, exactly. And we have phenomenal school of ed program here, school here, and all of our students get that hands-on experience. And imagine, and I say to my students too, when I used to teach an internship class, it is just as important to figure out what you don’t like as it is to figure out what you do like, because you’re going to go on that path.
And eventually you’ll realize this is not for me. And now you’ve just used up these years that you maybe could have found other paths. And so all of that is important. I think that as more people have gone to college, as it has opened up to a larger demographic, right? So we have attempted to make higher ed more equitable, more fair, get a wider variety of people into higher ed.
It’s not as much of a privileged thing that’s just being exposed to a small group of people who often were the children of the people in the high positions to begin with. And so they were, they had that luxury of going into college and just studying things that interested them.
getting that degree and they were going to be fine. They were going to go right into that business world, right into law school, whatever it might be. And now you have a week, for example, at our institution, almost 50 % of our students are first gen. Their parents don’t really get what this college thing is about necessarily. And they don’t really want them going to get a college degree in some discipline that they then are going to graduate and not know what to do with it.
Matt Sterenberg (11:19.424)
of a problem of progress, right? We’ve done so well in terms of the access side, but it creates its own challenges of how we need to evolve in higher ed.
Beth Merenstein (11:19.554)
So it’s, yeah.
Uh-huh.
Beth Merenstein (11:29.59)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And higher ed is a beast, right? So it’s so big. And it’s important and worth talking about the different kinds of institutions of higher ed. We are a regional comprehensive institution. We are a state, public state institution. And so it is our responsibility to provide our students with that practical hands on experience so that when they graduate, most of them with student debt,
Right? Not a lot because we have a reasonable tuition fee structure, but still enough that they’re going to understand what to do with that degree.
Matt Sterenberg (12:08.92)
I think it’s great that you brought up the type of institution that you’re at. I also think it’s funny that every regional has to say comprehensive at the end of it. They’re like, comprehensive, regional and comprehensive. But you know the students that you’re serving. And so the question is aligning experiential learning to the mission of the institution.
Beth Merenstein (12:19.051)
I know.
Regional comprehensive.
Beth Merenstein (12:28.717)
Right here.
Matt Sterenberg (12:35.894)
I think is a really interesting, because this isn’t necessarily the way you’re doing it is not the way that another institution should do it. So for you at Central Connecticut State, what are the types of experiences that you’re specifically trying to, and because it’s regional, I am curious about the partnerships that you craft to and, the necessity of having these regional relationships to give students the experience. So I just, would love to hear more of.
Beth Merenstein (12:43.779)
Right.
Matt Sterenberg (13:04.772)
how the regional institution is impacting the types of experiences you’re giving students.
Beth Merenstein (13:10.506)
Yeah, absolutely. So we are located in the center of Connecticut. That’s why we’re central Connecticut State University. We are located in the city of New Britain. Now, New Britain, like many sort of Northeast and Midwest cities, has gone through some major transitions, right? It was very heavy manufacturing back in the day, and then deindustrialization happened. You had large influx of
immigrant populations. It is a very diverse community, but it is very high, low income community. Not a lot of people go to college, lot higher unemployment than the rest of the state. For many years, they had one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, right? So sort of a lot of social issues that you might deal with in sort of midsize cities like that.
So we really do feel that it’s our responsibility to work with our partners in the community and think about ways that we can use our resources for the public good.
that that is as a regional comprehensive university, that is part of our responsibility. And so we do a lot of work, what we in the field refer to as hyperlocal. So we do a lot of work with community partners right in our surrounding New Britain city, you know, within maybe 10 miles. And there are incredible partners. Some of them are affiliated with national organizations, right? So like our local New Britain YWCA or
our local New Britain OIC, which is Opportunities Industrialization Center, which is all over the country, or our local Boys and Girls Club, right? But then there’s also sort of independent small nonprofits. There’s a great organization we work with called New Life, which works with folks who are coming out of the prison system and helps them transition, right? So.
Beth Merenstein (15:17.354)
A lot of it is about bringing together those community partners with our students to get our students to be working with those partners in whatever way that looks like and our faculty to maybe create a course around that work or maybe do some scholarship around that work and bring students in for it, right?
For example, we had a group of faculty who put together a project with a local organization on studying how this neighborhood felt about police and public safety. This was post George Floyd, this was what’s going on with the connection between the community and the police, right? And this was something the community wanted, but they didn’t have the resources to do it. So the faculty came together.
with the community partners created the right kind of survey. And then they brought the faculty brought in students to then go out into the community to conduct the survey. So you’re bringing all of these parties together to do something that benefits the community and being very sort of regionally and hyper-local focused. Now.
At the same time, we’ve been working on that sort of hyper local focus for a few years now and are beginning to branch out further and are recognizing that as sort of the center of Connecticut, we have a responsibility and role to the larger area. We’re only maybe.
10 miles from Hartford, which is the capital of Connecticut. So in terms of more business and industry, we’re doing a lot more work now with connecting to a lot of business partners. For example, we have an incredible program with Travelers, the insurance company, financial and insurance company. And so they have a program that was developed many years ago, and it’s still going strongly, average about 40 students a year who have almost like an apprenticeship program that Travelers help support.
Beth Merenstein (17:12.456)
their tuition, they get hands-on support here on campus, they primarily come from lower-income communities, and then they are guaranteed with a certain GPA to have an internship and then possibly a job when they graduate. And so it’s those kinds of connections with industry that can really benefit our students and the industry partners.
Matt Sterenberg (17:36.986)
I love this because if all the research right now is high skepticism of higher ed, a growing distrust is college worth it. That’s what everybody’s thinking. And what you’re doing is connecting, you’re being the heartbeat of your community in a sense where you’re connecting with all these people. There’s a trust there that they have from here’s what central Connecticut state is trying to do.
Beth Merenstein (17:44.611)
Yeah.
Beth Merenstein (17:50.252)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.
Beth Merenstein (18:02.294)
Yes.
Beth Merenstein (18:06.229)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (18:06.274)
And then you have your internship that has a GPA requirement. So people know that number one, the students motivated there and the people that are the insurance company, whoever it may be, they know that this internship means something. There’s like a rigor component to it. It’s not just every single one of our students where we promise they’ve got this experience or we’re going to put everybody. There’s an element of.
Beth Merenstein (18:10.744)
Mm-hmm.
Matt Sterenberg (18:34.318)
There has to be rigor and quality related to it so that we trust the students that we’re getting. We trust the experience that they’re going to get. And obviously the carrot of I need to do my work in order to get into this program. Cause I know how impactful it is. Like that’s the type of stuff that I think we need to be doing more of. especially, with the skepticism of higher ed, like what does a degree mean anymore? And so you’re building these relationships and partnerships that are building that trust with the people that are ultimately going to employ your students.
Beth Merenstein (18:39.394)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (18:56.099)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (19:04.95)
Yeah, and I think it gets back as well to what I mentioned before. I think that there is this skepticism of higher ed, but we all get kind of lumped together, right? So there’s so much right now in the news about what’s happening with the administration in DC and Harvard and Yale and Columbia, right? But that’s not us. That’s not where we’re at in terms of our students. Our students are incredibly
hardworking and motivated and many of them are supporting themselves in getting through college. And like I said, many of them are first gen. We have 40 % minority students. We have 10,000 students here and they deserve to be recognized for that hard work and they deserve for us to provide them every opportunity.
and connection that we can make for them. But again, yes, we also have a responsibility to the larger region to produce the best students that we can produce, have student success, but give back to this community what we think we can.
Matt Sterenberg (20:11.674)
How conscious do you think your students are of the experiential learning that they’re getting at CCSU? Do you know what mean? Like, I know it’s a funny question, but I talk with people about like comprehensive learner records, for instance, and like, how do we communicate more out of the classroom experiences on a document, an artifact or credential? you know, the artifact is great, but a lot of people have shared the feedback that…
Beth Merenstein (20:21.954)
That’s a good question.
Matt Sterenberg (20:41.924)
Well, actually, it’s a kind of a really good teaching tool. It’s like showing them what we’re measuring. It’s showing them kind of like the students that we want to produce. like take away the credential. It’s kind of actually like a pedagogical tool for the students of like, here’s what you should be communicating about yourself. But like, how conscious are your students of like, I’m going to this institution because it’s more experiential learning, or is it just I step foot on campus, I have no other experience to compare it to like, this must be what college is, you know, like, how much do you have to
Beth Merenstein (20:48.878)
Mm-hmm.
Beth Merenstein (21:10.926)
Yeah. Right, right. That’s a great question. And that’s something that we’ve actually been working on this, I would say this past year. So we have made a verbal commitment that every student will graduate with at least two experiential learning opportunities. And we are starting them out.
Matt Sterenberg (21:11.896)
teach them. We’re doing this on purpose basically.
Beth Merenstein (21:33.588)
even before they step foot on campus because they come for summer orientation. So we get maybe, I would say about 80 % of incoming first year students come to sub two day summer orientation. And so my office now in the last three years we’ve done this, we take one of the sessions during those two days and the students do a service activity.
So they learn about New Britain, they learn about the region, they learn about some of the benefits, positive things, difficulties that exist, right? And then we have connected with a community partner. So for example, we connected with the local school district and the students, our students then, our incoming students, fill backpacks for the New Britain elementary school kids. And they write a letter to them about what it means to get to college and what…
you know, motivation and all of that kind of thing. And then they reflect on why are we doing this? Why are we giving back to our community? Why does it matter? Right. And we talk to them about things like being civically engaged, right. Being civically engaged is not just voting. It’s how can you care about your community? And so we’re trying to situate them in this idea of we are going to expect this from you the next four to six years that you’re here.
It’s not going to be just come to campus, take my classes, and either I’m a commuter and I go home and I go to work or I, you know, go to parties, which is great. All of that’s great. But you need to actually think about how am I giving back and how is that actually not just going to benefit other people but benefit me as well. And so in thinking about all that, we’ve created some systems to help with that. So on the one hand, we are creating this where they second they step foot on campus in the summer.
they’re learning about it. We also have a new platform that we’re using that tracks all of our experiential learning. So the students, it’s sort of being used like a virtual digital bulletin board where students can go on there and find opportunities and then sign up for them on there, which then tracks it.
Beth Merenstein (23:44.136)
Right? So that’s another way that we are encouraging them to use that to then capture it. And then we are in the process of developing our comprehensive learner record, which the students will then, and again, we’re going to launch that this summer with our incoming students so that they can see this comprehensive learner record, this first experience, this service activity they’re going to do with us is going to go on that comprehensive learner record. Do you want it to be empty?
Or do you want to keep filling it out? Right? And so we are working with our advisors, with our faculty, so that it is not just for the student to know about it, but for everybody to then be using the comprehensive learner records so that the student understands the more that I do, the more that I fill this out, the better it will look when I go to talk to an employer in the future.
Matt Sterenberg (24:14.298)
and
Matt Sterenberg (24:37.526)
I just yesterday, we recorded an episode and by the time this comes out, it will be released, but with Sean Vanderzeel from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. And we talked about what’s the job outlook for graduates. Check out that episode if you haven’t listened to it, but it’s what do people want? You know, what employers want? they’re like communication, critical thinking, teamwork, know, none of, yeah, the career.
Beth Merenstein (24:47.564)
Yes. Yep. Yep. I will, because I’m a huge fan. Yep.
Yep.
the eight NACE competencies, yep. Yep.
Matt Sterenberg (25:06.754)
Readiness competencies, right? And then they rated the proficiency of graduates. And the biggest gaps are in the things that they find the most important. And the big question is, do we have a communication gap? Students are more prepared. They just don’t have to communicate it. Or do we actually have to fill these things? And I think both can be true, right? There’s always going to be some gap. They’ve never had a real job before for a lot of students. So of course, they’re not going to be perfect communicators or critical thinkers. We all could get better at all those things.
Beth Merenstein (25:32.206)
Bye.
Matt Sterenberg (25:36.42)
you know, thinking about in our world and at Parchment and Instructure, it’s like, yeah, how would I know any of this on a transcript? You know, like I see you got a B plus in Latin American history. I guess I can assume maybe you’re a good critical thinker or maybe a good writer. I don’t really know what was in the syllabus. And so I think that’s where we’re trying to fill this gap and a comprehensive learner record can be a good way to do that.
Beth Merenstein (25:45.847)
Exactly.
What does that mean? Right. Yep.
Matt Sterenberg (26:03.62)
How do we communicate these soft skills or durable skills or transversal skills, wherever you want to call them? How do we equip the students to know what they have and how to communicate it? And then kind of have a proof point for it. Like what actually went into this, I think is a great thing. I want to ask you about a feedback loop. How do you know these experiences are meaningful, both to the people you partner with and to the students?
Beth Merenstein (26:22.286)
Okay.
Beth Merenstein (26:31.086)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Matt Sterenberg (26:32.748)
Is there any type of feedback loop that you’re getting that lets you know like, this is impactful work that we’re doing.
Beth Merenstein (26:40.994)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And I just want to say one thing, though, about so we are incorporating those NACE competencies into our CLR that we’re developing because we think they’re so important. And I agree with you that the CLR is as important for an employer to look at as it is for the student to be able to talk about what they’ve been learning. And so it’s not just what they’ve been learning in classes, but what they’ve been learning in these experiences that they’re doing. And so that’s why we see it as so important. The feedback loop is happening in a
Matt Sterenberg (26:49.486)
fantastic.
Beth Merenstein (27:10.978)
of ways. So for example, that service activity that they do in summer orientation, they do a final reflection on that. And so previously they just hand wrote it. We gave them some questions and they hand wrote it. Now that we’re using a new platform, they’re going to upload it right onto the platform. And that platform also has an impact sort of feature on it. So any activity that anyone does, they can input their reflection.
right into there. And so it captures that. So we gather, we get about maybe 1200 students in the summer. So we have stacks of reflections from the students talking about what it meant to them and talking about, in many ways, talking about, never, you I didn’t think I would do this kind of thing when I got here, but this was really cool, or this was really impactful, or.
I want to do more of this kind of thing, which is exactly what we’re looking for. So that’s one way. We do a annual survey with all of our community partners. So we have a series of questions that we ask them that we have tweaked at different times when necessary.
but in order to make sure that they think that we’re having good communication with them, that they’re getting what they need from us. So that’s another way. We also go through the Carnegie classification, which I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but we’re a community engaged classified university. We went through it the first time in 2010, we were renewed in 2020, and now we just went through the process again. And so.
doing that process requires us to ask a lot of those questions and really look at sort of how are we doing, right? Assess ourselves basically. So that’s really helpful. And then I have a community engagement advisory board that meets sort of every other month and there’s 15 partners on that board and.
Beth Merenstein (29:04.958)
they’re amazing. They’re incredible at giving feedback, talking about what they’re looking for, talking about our students. Many of them take our students in as interns or for volunteer opportunities. And so we get a lot of feedback that way. But it is an ongoing process. We are currently trying to figure out the best way to measure the impact of internships, because we don’t really, you know, it’s up to the student once they leave us to follow back with us. But we are trying to do a
to have better partnership with our alumni relations, with our career development office, and kind of all come together to see if we can better track the benefit of doing these experiential learning opportunities.
Matt Sterenberg (29:46.776)
Yeah, that would be phenomenal data to have like X percent of internships lead to full-time employment. think would be, yeah, that gets you excited about the internship for sure. Although I also wonder how many college students are at what age do they really start worrying about a job? you know, if you’re a freshman, sophomore, you’re like, I’m just enjoying college at this point. Any other recommendations?
Beth Merenstein (29:50.242)
Yeah.
Beth Merenstein (29:55.456)
Exactly.
Beth Merenstein (30:10.442)
Yes.
Matt Sterenberg (30:16.11)
that you have for people that are exploring this work? know, what, let’s say someone’s really trying to launch this at their institution. What recommendations do you have for those people or resources that people should consider?
Beth Merenstein (30:28.438)
Yeah, I think that there’s a few things I think I would start small and and I have been accused of not starting small. So I tend to have like grand ideas and think that we can just implement them. And my staff has sometimes been like, yeah, that’s not possible. We need to slow down or we need to rethink that. And so I think there’s something to be said about that and to sort of recognize that.
You can try things and then see what works, maybe take a step back, go a different direction, and that you’re not going to reach all students at all times. You have to be realistic about
who you can get and how you’re going to get them and that there are variety of ways to get them, right? So experiential learning can include undergraduate research. It can include internships. It can include volunteer opportunities. And so it is recognizing, I think, that different students have different interests and that’s good. You want that. So I would say start small pilot programs to then scale it up. I would also say that coming up with the right platform to tracking things
it would be helpful. So we just implemented ours maybe six months ago. So before that, a lot of it was by hand, Excel spreadsheets, trying to gather information from other people. It was very tedious and hard to get the data. And so we’ve just launched this platform. So we have to also be patient with rolling it out and getting the buy-in. But
I think it is important to have those things in place so that you are able to measure and assess the work that you’re doing and then find ways that you might want to make some improvements.
Matt Sterenberg (32:16.43)
really like that you highlighted that for every major or department, the legs of the stool of experiential learning could look different, right? For some departments, it’s research for some internships make a lot of sense for some it’s volunteering and getting out in the community in that way. So that’s a really interesting thing. It’s not internships in and of itself. But how do we think about this? How do we connect with each different faculty member or Dean and
Beth Merenstein (32:25.698)
Yes. Yep.
Beth Merenstein (32:32.842)
Exactly.
Beth Merenstein (32:39.479)
No.
Beth Merenstein (32:43.49)
Yes.
Matt Sterenberg (32:45.292)
speaking their language and really thinking about how we apply this in different circumstances I think is really interesting.
Beth Merenstein (32:52.404)
Yeah, I would not recommend that anybody go out there and say, okay, at our institution, everyone’s going to do an internship. That’s not going to work for everybody. And that’s not what they’re looking for. And some kids come to us, and the jobs that they’ve been doing is almost like an internship. They don’t need another one, or they don’t need that. They’re looking for something different. And some kids come to us and they’ve been volunteering all through high school, and they love it. And they want to keep doing that.
Why would we say, you can’t do that, you need to do something else? Like that just doesn’t make any sense.
Matt Sterenberg (33:25.582)
Beth, I really enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for joining me.
Beth Merenstein (33:29.656)
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it as well.
