Sobey School of Business and Saint Mary's EIT Collaborate on New Student-Led Internship

Explore the new internship opportunity for Sobey School of Business students.

Through a brand-new collaboration between Saint Mary’s University’s Enterprise Information Technology (EIT) management, the Sobey School of Business and the Faculty of Commerce, Master of Technology Entrepreneurship & Innovation (MTEI) student Kavitha Raveendaran has begun work as the first EIT technology intern here at Saint Mary’s. EIT supports the mission of Saint Mary’s University by connecting faculty, staff, and students to the information technology resources they need, and Raveendaran sees her position as an extension of this mission.

Discover the EIT Technology Internship program

“This internship is a bridge between EIT and the Sobey School,” says Raveendaran. “There is a lot of value in having more open communication between these groups.” The EIT Technology Internship program, as envisioned, creates an optimal learning environment for interns to apply their real-world and educational experience, benefiting themselves, their client departments, and the university.

Todd Williams, Chief Information Officer of Saint Mary’s University, recognized the deep and diverse skill sets possessed by students and saw an opportunity that would benefit graduate students, departments and faculties, and the university at large. The vision of the EIT paid internship, offered to graduate students within the MTEI program, was to provide the intern with the opportunity to apply their knowledge to real projects, involving people, process, and technology, by assisting in the delivery of enterprise-level strategic initiatives to department stakeholders.

Meet the first EIT Intern

Raveendaran was looking for just such a position. An IT engineering graduate originally from India, she travelled to Saint Mary’s to pursue her MTEI degree. Her goal when she arrived in Halifax was to find a job in her field to do alongside her studies; with over 12 years of software development experience and having worked with large national and multi-national companies, she approached the IT department for job opportunities.

“I had never worked in a higher education domain before, and so I reached out to Todd Williams of EIT,” Raveendaran explains. “We had a meeting wherein I asked about part-time work and the potential for an internship. Todd really gave me the space to figure out what I wanted to do with this position. He collaborated with me and allowed me to customize the position based on where I could see myself succeeding.”

What to expect in this internship

During this eight-month internship, which began mid-March of this year, Raveendaran will be working on institutional projects based on modernizing and streamlining communication technology used at the Sobey School of Business, as well as helping to identify technological needs for the new Sobeys Inspiration Hub. Kavitha appreciates the unique opportunity that an internship in her field within the university landscape poses for her. “I am able to both work and study at the university,” she says. “It’s wonderful.”

“At first, I was terrified to come back to school,” she says. “I haven’t been a student for 12 years, how do you get back to that? Once I arrived, I realized how warm and supportive everybody at Saint Mary’s is. It really feels like faculty sees equal potential in all of their students &mash; it helped me see the potential in myself.”