While some students who landed summer internships were forced to spend hours in crowded offices, fourth-year Commerce students Emily and Sarah Beck, twin sisters, successfully completed a six-week internship program without leaving the comfort of their home.
Fairness.com, which employed the Becks this summer, is a recently developed Charlottesville-based company that describes itself as a non-profit "clearinghouse Web site." The company provides information on various fairness-related issues, from professional ethics to consumer protection.
People can log on to the Web site and search for articles pertaining to specific topics or organizations of interest to them.
"We live in a world in which there is no shortage of issues of fairness," said Dan Doernberg, the company's president.
The Beck sisters learned of this unique internship opportunity through the Commerce School. As volunteers, the sisters successfully field-tested the virtual internship program.
The program went national yesterday with its first officially accepted student, Chelsea Heimbuch-Skaley, a philosophy major at Simmons College in Boston.
She will receive college credit for her research and writings related to law and international relations.
Students interested in thoroughly researching a specific fairness-related topic can obtain internships with the company while possibly earning academic credit.
"Students get to customize a learning experience in their field of study," Doernberg said.
Fairness.com interns follow online media coverage of their topic and write brief abstracts of articles, totaling between eight and 10 abstracts per day. Interns also write original articles that are later published on Fairness.com.
"We researched fairness issues of interest to college students," Emily Beck said.
The sisters completed a total of three original articles each. Topics for these articles ranged from Spring Break scams todeceptive credit card or rental offers.
Participants work from home anywhere in the country, keeping in contact with Doernberg via phone or e-mail.
"We were in contact with Dan at least five times a day," Emily Beck said.
Although the Becks were not paid for their full-time work, they and other interns retain the rights to their written work that they can reprint or re-use at a later date.
"The students own what they write," Doernberg said.
"I had never done anything like this before, and I think it was a good experience," Emily Beck said. "I think it would be especially good for students in journalism or media studies."
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