The College recently introduced a new commitment scholarship for incoming students, which will go into effect in fall 2022. The scholarship includes up to $5,000 in financial support for summer opportunities, including internships, research- and performance-based experiences, and other pre-professional activities for every student who enrolls in fall 2022 and onward.

The program, titled Internship+ Commitment was announced in an Oct. 27 Campus Digest email.

“This commitment came out of a recommendation in the One Oberlin report to guarantee funding for one high-quality internship per student,” the email reads. “Students may elect to use the full amount in the summer following their junior year, or divide the funds between their sophomore and junior summers, and will present a clearly defined experiential learning plan, including an itemized budget.”

Additionally, participating students will take part in programming coordinated by the Career Development Center and the Office of Conservatory Professional Development to prepare participants for their experiential learning project.

“We have been working towards this goal of supporting

all students’ experiential learning,” wrote Interim Director of the Career Development Center and Associate Dean of the College of the Arts and Sciences Laura Baudot in an email to the Review. “Opportunities to apply their learning in internships, research, and other pre-professional experiences can be transformational for students — they enrich an Oberlin education and help students launch successfully into meaningful work or graduate study.”

College fourth-year Alayna Bierly participated in an internship in January 2020 and stated that the previous process of applying for scholarships was difficult.

“I requested $1,000 and got zero,”Bierly said.“I had to dip into savings that I did not anticipate depending on, but that’s my situation. Someone else who got this internship and who didn’t have the same resources that I did would not have been able to go. I filled out a super involved application for funding for the Winter Term project, and when I was applying to Oberlin and learning about Winter Term it seemed like a very accessible thing. Obviously it was still accessible to me, but the process in general was just not accessible.”

Baudot hopes the program can remedy this issue.

“The Internship+ Commitment scales up our current support for juniors … and promotes greater access to these pre-professional experiences,” Baudot wrote.