Garret Robinson, a master’s student in TU’s industrial-organizational psychology program, spent his summer interning for a large transportation company in Northwest Arkansas (for privacy purposes the name of the company will not be disclosed).
“My internship centered around restructuring engineering and technology jobs,” he said. “In rewriting the job descriptions and qualifications for these jobs, we also developed a competency model that outlined the most important skills and abilities for each job. These competencies will be used to aid in training and selection.”
Robinson said he enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out what determines success in a highly technical work environment.
“I had to spend a lot of time learning about the engineering and technology fields before I knew how to ask employees about their jobs,” he said.
Robinson chose TU for his graduate studies after reading a study published on the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s website. The study reported findings from a survey asking U.S. graduates about their experiences with their graduate program. It showed that TU was a highly regarded university for I-O Psychology among nearly every dimension studied.
Robinson said when he arrived at TU he was surprised to find that TU’s student population had so many people from outside of the Midwest though.
“I had not realized that TU had a national and international presence before attending,” he said.
Robinson plans to graduate in May and hopes to enter the workforce as a consultant, eventually applying his skills to help smaller companies with limited resources create healthy work environments for their employees. His internship provided Robinson invaluable experience in developing ways to apply the skills learned in his program to help solve issues found in the workplace.
“I will miss the ease of seeking guidance from both faculty and my cohorts after I graduate,” Robinson said. “I doubt it will ever be as easy as it is now to reach out to someone in my field to talk through a new or interesting problem.”