Everyone has heard the phrase “dress to impress,” but what someone wears to impress their friends on the weekends is entirely different from what they wear to impress a coworker or boss. More and more students across the Keene State College campus are getting involved with internships in order to prepare themselves for their future careers. These students are getting the chance to dress up in business clothes and their potential workplace uniforms for the first time ever.
However, appropriate internship attire differs from workplace to workplace.
KSC senior Rebecca Innerfield, took part in an internship at Monadnock Center for Violence Prevention (MCVP) last year.
Innerfield said she found she could dress casually on the job.
“I started out my internship trying to dress in nicer, more business-style clothes, but then I realized everyone else there was much more casual,” Innerfield said, “I really liked that I could be comfortable at my job. We were dealing with so much there that you kind of need to be comfortable to make the people you’re working with comfortable.”
Innerfield is a psychology major who said she hopes to specialize in substance abuse counseling. At MCVP, Innerfield said she got the chance to see how important counseling is.
“The people there need you,” Innerfield said, “What you wear is important. You don’t want them to feel uncomfortable if you’re wearing some extremely fancy or intimidating outfit. You want to be on an equal playing field.”
Another KSC senior Cody Gauthier is interning this semester at the Phoenix House in Dublin, N.H. According to its website, the Phoenix House specializes in “drug and alcohol addiction treatment.”
Gauthier also said that his internship’s dress code is typically very casual, but he prefers to dress up.
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“I feel like I dress the nicest there because I’m an intern and I’m trying to stay as professional as possible and make an impression on the people I work with,” Gauthier said, “I usually wear nice khakis and a dress shirt. Other people I work with will be wearing flannels or more comfortable clothing.”
Gauthier said he believes it’s appropriate to dress nicer as a student taking part in an internship.
“When we’re given the opportunity of an internship, I think we’re in the position to try to dress to impress. It’s practice for the real world and we’re interacting with people who could potentially offer us jobs or write recommendations in the future,” Gauthier said.
Relating to job offers, Gauthier said he believes the job opportunities he has had in the past were partly because of how he dressed.
“It’s people’s first impression of you. What you wear is extremely important to how people perceive you and I feel like most of the jobs I’ve gotten or done well at were because of how I presented myself,” Gauthier said.
Gauthier continued, “If you’re taking your job or internship seriously, the easiest way to show it is how you dress.”
Gauthier, who said he is only shadowing at his internship at the Phoenix House now, hopes to become a clinician once he is finished with graduate school. He believes this internship is practice for his future.
While some internships have a more casual dress code, others rely solely on uniform.
Senior Alexandra Oliveri is a nursing major who is preparing to spend next semester doing a preceptorship shadowing a nurse at a hospital.
“Preceptorships are basically like internships, but they’re mostly for people in the medical field to gain hands-on experience and training before we actually go into our careers,” Oliveri said.
While Oliveri doesn’t need to worry about figuring out what to wear, she said the pressure to try to fit in is still the same.
“I love that we get to wear scrubs and I don’t need to worry if a top is too casual or not, but trying to impress your boss when you don’t have that added opportunity of dressing up is a different type of pressure,” Oliveri said.
However, pressure aside, Oliveri said she is fond of the nursing uniform.
“I love my uniform so much. Scrubs are so comfortable and you kind of need that extra room to breathe when you’re doing something as labor intensive as nursing,” Oliveri said, “It’s the ideal work uniform.”
Whatever internship they’re involved with in preparation for their futures, students agree that what you wear matters.
“This is your first opportunity to impress an employer. You might as well put in the effort to show up and look presentable every day. It only helps you in the end,” Gauthier said.
Stephanie McCann can be contacted at smccann@kscequinox.com
