For college students looking to gain an upper hand in landing the perfect internship, a company called University of Dreams is ready and waiting to help – for a price.
Eric Lochtefeld founded University of Dreams as a summer program aiming to give students a boost in the skills they need to stand out at the internship that – for $6,000-$9,000 – University of Dreams guarantees you at the end of the program.
Lochtefeld said the price doesn’t affect the quality of support a student receives from the program or the level of internship for which they are eligible. The difference between $6,000 and $9,000 just depends on where the student attends University of Dreams, which has programs
in nine cities around the world.
Jake Ashey, a VCU freshman theater major, said the price is all right. “Sounds like it would be a quick way to get going on your career,” Ashey said.
He said the summer program leading into the internship sounds like a good deal and a good idea.
The program, which Lochtefeld likens to study-abroad programs, lasts for eight weeks during the summer and is all-inclusive. Students are housed and are provided with transportation and weekend activities.
Lochtefeld said the idea for such an in-depth program came to him while he was running a smaller program called Business Camp.
“I was working in the rock ‘n’ roll industry and putting on music festivals,” said Lochtefeld, also a co-founder of the Warped Tour. “I thought it would be a really neat idea to get college students to meet all these eclectic sponsors that were doing the Warped Tour.”
If participants complete the program all the way through, Lochtefeld said he guarantees each student will secure an internship with one of several top worldwide companies – and that, he says, is what makes the price tag worthwhile.
Steve O’Hara, who is a financial planner in Chicago
– one of the cities in which a University of Dreams program is located, told Newsweek’s Sarah Kliff: “As a parent, what’s the one thing I’m willing to spend more money on? My child’s education,” in the Dec. 2007 story “The Price of Success.”
Lochtefeld said that for most parents or students, depending on who’s paying
the bills, an extra few thousand dollars on top of tuition doesn’t seem like much when it results in a guaranteed internship.
There are other companies
that guarantee internships for the “right” price, and that price is significantly cheaper than the sticker shock that comes with University of Dreams.
“That’s what my agents are really, really good at,” Lochtefeld said. “We rely on relationships, so if you can pick up the phone and get to the person that actually makes the decision, that’s the key.”
Lochtefeld said the difference between using the resources students have available to them, such as department heads, professors and career centers is that his company puts students in direct contact with real decision makers.
He said this circumvents what he calls “the black
simply submit forms online and have no direct contact with the companies to which they are applying.
The main problem opponents see with this program is that fewer and fewer students will receive internships based on merit if being able to pay for the one you want becomes common practice.
Dario Bravo is head of the University of California Los Angeles internship program.
” It does bother me that people would try to exploit students with charging them, you know, because students don’t have to do that,” Bravo said in an interview with NPR.
Bravo said he has helped thousands of students get in-
ternships free of charge.