Garden City, NY - October 15, 2015 - A hallmark of the business curriculum at the Adelphi University Robert B. Willumstad School of Business is its Internship and Mentorship Program which finds the right internships for students and prepares them to make the most of this opportunity. Internship experiences powerfully complement classroom learning and give students a critical competitive edge in finding employment upon graduation. A successful internship program rests on having a strong relationship between the Willumstad School and employers. Recently, Thomas Croker ’71, the director of sales at IBM for the New York/New Jersey Enterprise organization, shared his thoughts on the connections he has facilitated between his employer and the students at the Willumstad School.
Thomas Croker has been with IBM for 47 years, having started in the spring of 1968 answering the phone at night. He eventually began working there full-time while still continuing as a full-time student at Adelphi, graduating cum laude with a BBA in business management in 1971. His job at IBM helped him pay his way through school and gave him the career he has pursued. Croker has stayed in touch with his alma mater and helped build a strong ongoing relationship between the Internship and Mentoring Program in the Willumstad School and IBM, one of the world’s leading computer technology and consulting firms. As a result, Neil Halloran, director of the Internship and Mentoring Program, has been able to connect Willumstad students with IBM’s human resources department – ensuring extraordinary opportunities for Adelphi students and access high quality interns for IBM.
Croker is proud of the high quality work of the Adelphi interns; an impressive assessment given that IBM recruits globally. “The reality is with a national company like IBM, they tend to gravitate to some of the better known national programs like NYU or Georgetown, so what I try to do is be an advocate for Adelphi,” says Croker. “I try to impress on the people who hire interns and trainees the quality of the education, and the quality of students that are at Adelphi.” He points out that Adelphi students have an incredible drive and work ethic that is not always found in students from larger universities. “Many of them are from what I call ‘hard working Long Island Families’,” says Croker. “I’m proud of the work ethic that Adelphi students bring to the table, as well as of the program itself and how students will come out of Adelphi with a solid foundation and a background in business.”
According to Croker, the experience of working through college, especially in a business relevant position, is one he feels will benefit students beyond just resume enhancement. The first thing he mentioned is that it teaches a student two very important life skills: time management and “priority management.” He explains how balancing both schoolwork and a job or internship teaches students to use their time wisely to stay on top of their workload, and teaches them to prioritize tasks in order of importance. He admitted that sometimes time does not allow one to get everything done and one has to “do what’s important and not do what isn’t important,” and the ability to know the difference is learned from this experience.
Croker believes that the internship experience helps to clarify a student’s choice of career. “An internship can help you create positive impressions of an environment or even provide you with helpful negative impressions,” he says. Croker explained how an accounting student may take an internship at an accounting firm and realize that this is actually not what s/he wanted to do and find a different passion, or s/he may love it and become even more committed to accounting. Students should take advantage of the various internship opportunities. As Croker points out, “business is a big thing in which the jobs are as different as night and day. You can be HR, sales, etc. The person who arrives as a freshman thinking they want to be an accountant, they may learn they want to be in sales or marketing.” He believes that an internship is the best way for a student to find their passion in the business world.
For more information about The Robert B. Willumstad Internship and Mentorship Program, visit here.
About Adelphi University
New York’s Adelphi University is a nationally ranked, doctoral research university where students succeed by gaining the skills, knowledge and exposure to thrive as professionals and active citizens in an interconnected and fast-paced global society. Today, nearly 8,000 students from 38 states and 46 countries pursue degrees in person and online through Adelphi’s eight distinguished schools and programs—the College of Arts and Sciences, the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, the Honors College, the Robert B. Willumstad School of Business, the Ruth S. Ammon School of Education, University College, the College of Nursing and Public Health and the School of Social Work. Chartered in 1896, Adelphi is known for offering a personalized education—one is which students are mentored by talented and committed faculty members and readily find opportunities to initiate, innovate, explore and understand. With dynamic learning hubs on Long Island, in Manhattan and in the Hudson Valley, Adelphi serves communities, both regionally and globally, through the research and practice of its faculty, the collaborative initiatives undertaken by its centers and programs, the staging of distinguished cultural events and, most essentially, the education of future leaders and informed citizens.