Students earn credit for corporate work
HARTFORD - The University of Connecticut has struck partnerships with several major corporations to give students a chance to handle projects for the companies while earning college credits, officials said yesterday.
UConn’s president, Susan Herbst, and Connecticut’s lieutenant governor, Nancy Wyman, announced the partnerships at UConn’s Stamford campus. Much of the work will take place there, in a facility called the Stamford Learning Accelerator.
The partnerships will benefit both sides, they said:
UConn’s students will get real-world business experience to build their skills and resumes, and the companies will get research and other projects they otherwise would have had to shoulder themselves.
“The students essentially are working on the projects and working with the companies to come up with the answers and solutions the company is looking for,’’ said George Plesko, associate dean for graduate programs and research at UConn’s School of Business.
They will not be entry-level internships or part-time work making photocopies and fetching coffee, officials said.
The business school students will team up with UConn undergraduates and graduate students in other disciplines - and with varying skills and career goals - on projects ranging from marketing and communications strategies to budget analysis, risk management, and financial modeling.
“These students are working on a project for a company, but at the same time the presence of the faculty adviser ensures that, first and foremost, this is an educational opportunity,’’ Plesko said.
The new corporate partners include Fairfield-based General Electric ; IBM , of Armonk, N.Y.; UBS, an international financial services company with its North American headquarters in Stamford; and Pitney Bowes , an office equipment and software company based in Stamford.
Others include K2 Advisors, a Stamford fund overseeing billions in other hedge fund investments; and the Long Island Sound Futures Fund, which offers workshops and grants to help protect the sound.
Nine projects are lined up with the new partners.
Several others are in the works through other UConn initiatives. All will be brought under the umbrella of the Stamford Learning Accelerator.
Some of those projects include working with UBS to identify risk factors of certain international investments and creating financial models for GE Capital Treasury on how interest rates and economic environments affect prepayments.
