Joe Rash spends his summer days staking out the direction an extension of Southern Expressway will take, visiting construction sites with survey crews and double-checking construction design plans against the final plan filed at city hall.

Jackie Langford works with computer-aided drafting programs to develop a sketch for a storm water drainage project and visits a construction site along Rodney Street when pile drilling crews are at work.

And while they are both being paid for their work, it's the practical experience in the engineering field that Rash and Langford were seeking when they became student interns for the Cape Girardeau engineer's office.

Rash has worked for the department both as an intern and part-time employee for two years.

This is Langford's first summer working here and the job has been a great experience, she said. Langford will graduate from the civil engineering program at the University of Missouri-Rolla in December.

"I've really tried to get an overall understanding of what goes on in case I want to consider it full-time," she said.

The department employees have answered her questions, explained projects and tried to give her a variety of work. "You learn so much by being out in the field," Langford said.

An inside look

Many companies find that hiring summer interns can help create productive employees later. And with larger companies downsizing, internships are rising in popularity. A study by Vault.com found that 77 percent of college students had completed an internship by their senior year.

The jobs give students an inside look at a company, an understanding of what is required of full-time employees and make a great addition to resumes and portfolios.

Some university programs require students to complete an internship before graduation, though that wasn't the case for Rash or Langford.

At Southeast Missouri State University, where Rash is a graduate student in the industrial technology program, only a few degree programs require internships, usually in marketing or mass communications, university officials said.

Because the department has been short-staffed, interns help fill some of those gaps, said city engineer Mark Lester. Many of the interns come in without any job experience but with a good work ethic and a willingness to learn.

If an intern turns out to be "worth their salt," then Lester might consider them as a job candidate should an opening ever arise.

That's how Rash has continued to work part-time. During his first internship, he developed a computerized time management program for employees to log their hours worked on a job and help with billing contractors who complete city projects.

When he isn't working as an intern, he also checks "as-built" construction against the submitted plans and inspection reports. He works about 30 hours each week, but will cut back to about 10 when classes begin later this month.

Puts students ahead

Getting the internship isn't necessarily a precursor to a job interview, yet it does put students steps ahead in the process, said Dr. Jack Sterrett, chairman of the marketing department at Southeast Missouri State University and director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Small Business Management.

Students, usually at their junior level, begin with Internet searches and researching companies where they might like to work. All who seek an internship through the marketing department have to submit letters of inquiry and send resumes just as they would if they were applying for a position, Sterrett said.

Sometimes it's a challenge to find companies that have enough projects to keep a student busy or will devote enough time to teaching them, according to Sterrett. "You like to think they do more than sweep the floors," he said

The Career and Technology Center tries to get each of its students in the adult business technology course an internship so they can see how to apply the basic classroom skills in the workplace.

Most of the employers understand that it is a learning situation, but come to expect a lot of the students, said Harold Tilley, the center's director.

Students "get real-life experience and what better way to do that than in a real job," he said.

However, student internships aren't automatic. Students have to earn the right to go to the job site. "We wouldn't send them ill-prepared," Tilley said.

Langford and Rash agree that their textbook knowledge has been greatly enhanced by their on-the-job experiences.

"I can see where the work relates to my degree," Rash said.