{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Career Everywhere","title":"Internships for Everyone: How ODU Removes Barriers to Work-Based Learning, Part 1 (feat. Barbara Blake)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2814,"description":"What would it look like if every college student—not just the ones who knew to ask, or had the time, or could afford to go unpaid—actually got a meaningful work-based learning experience before graduation?\nThat's not a hypothetical at ODU. It's the mandate.\nIn this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Dr. Barbara Blake, Chief Internship Officer and Executive Director of the Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office at Old Dominion University, for the first installment of a two-part conversation.\nThe Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office doesn't run career fairs. It doesn't do resume workshops. It has one job: make sure every ODU student—regardless of major, college, or background—has a work-based learning experience before they walk across the stage. That singular focus is what sets it apart from ODU's traditional career center, and from most career services models entirely.\nThat focus is also by design. ODU is a minority-serving institution with high Pell and first-gen populations and a large military-connected community—students who are statistically less likely to complete internships and who face real barriers to access, from transportation to professional attire to the simple reality of not being able to afford to work for free. Barbara built her office around the belief that those barriers are solvable, and that solving them requires dedicated infrastructure, not just good intentions.\nIn part one, Barbara and Meredith dig into how the office came to be, how it sits within ODU's broader ecosystem alongside the Center for Career and Leadership Development, and how four distinct pathways—for-credit internship courses, a free zero-credit co-curricular course, prior learning assessment, and prior internship recognition—are making sure work-based learning is accessible, documented, and on the transcript where employers can see it.\nStay tuned for part two, dropping later in July, where Barbara and Meredith get into the office's...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/TrzA0-LSinxoJEe66KJpatUxUh4t2w3jXW0NZ0qGHUw/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzM3MjE5LzE2NzE2/NTg2NDAtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}