<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>NUS undergrads cry foul over internship
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lee Xin En
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Some National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduates are fuming after being denied internship places at the large law firms this year.
And they are fingering the rival School of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU), which they believe has tied up with several law firms to reserve places for its own students.
One disgruntled second-year NUS undergraduate said last year's batch of NUS law students had applied as late as March and still got internships at the top law firms during their school break last month.
The student and at least 10 of her classmates applied in January this year, but were not given offers at any of these firms.
While they say their grades and previous internship experience are comparable to that of their seniors, they believe that SMU students have allocated internships within these firms as 100 per cent of this year's cohort got internship places.
'It is greatly unfair to book places at a firm and deprive other students of open competition,' said the student, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising her future internship chances.She had to settle for a month- long internship at a smaller firm.
'Internships are important. We often get offered pupillage places at the end of our internship, so not doing an internship may mean not getting a pupillage offer,' she said.
While SMU has a mandatory 10-week internship requirement for its students, NUS does not require its law students to serve such attachments. That is another reason why NUS law students believe SMU secures internship positions for its students, or they may not be able to graduate.
SMU's associate dean of external relations and practice assistant professor of law Rathna Nathan confirmed that all 116 students from its pioneer batch obtained internships during this school vacation from May to this month.
But she denied that the school has arrangements with firms to allocate spots for its students.
'We would not have been able to place all of our students in internships without our partners, but they also choose students completely based on merit,' she said.
'Firms naturally also want to take the cream of the crop.'
Mr Jarrod Ng, human resource director of Wong Partnership, agreed. 'Every internship place in our firm is given based on merit,' he said. He did not have the figures for the number of SMU and NUS interns hired this year, but said the number this year and last, as well as the competition for places, have remained constant.
But an administrative officer with another top law firm revealed that 12 to 15 places are 'set aside' each month for SMU students, even though only about 50 per cent of these places are filled.
The firm hires roughly 30 interns each month.
NUS was unable to provide any figures for the number of students currently serving internships as it does not oversee an internship programme.
Professor Tan Cheng Han, dean of the NUS law faculty, said that while he has not heard of SMU booking internship spots for its students, he had anticipated that SMU would likely have to make such arrangements because of the school's mandatory internship requirement.
But he does not believe that this is why internships at big firms are hard to get, but rather because the large firms have not grown in proportion to the sharp increase in the number of law students here.
Before SMU started its law school in August 2007, the annual intake at NUS was about 220. This year, NUS alone has 250.
With an additional 116 SMU students from the pioneer batch, the total number of law students has almost doubled.
Prof Tan advised students not to be fixated on getting internships in the large firms. 'As a law student, I personally did not spend any time as an intern in a Singapore law firm. I valued my precious vacation time and spent it on student activities and sports,' he said.
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Lee Xin En
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Some National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduates are fuming after being denied internship places at the large law firms this year.
And they are fingering the rival School of Law at the Singapore Management University (SMU), which they believe has tied up with several law firms to reserve places for its own students.
One disgruntled second-year NUS undergraduate said last year's batch of NUS law students had applied as late as March and still got internships at the top law firms during their school break last month.
The student and at least 10 of her classmates applied in January this year, but were not given offers at any of these firms.
While they say their grades and previous internship experience are comparable to that of their seniors, they believe that SMU students have allocated internships within these firms as 100 per cent of this year's cohort got internship places.
'It is greatly unfair to book places at a firm and deprive other students of open competition,' said the student, who did not want to be named for fear of jeopardising her future internship chances.She had to settle for a month- long internship at a smaller firm.
'Internships are important. We often get offered pupillage places at the end of our internship, so not doing an internship may mean not getting a pupillage offer,' she said.
While SMU has a mandatory 10-week internship requirement for its students, NUS does not require its law students to serve such attachments. That is another reason why NUS law students believe SMU secures internship positions for its students, or they may not be able to graduate.
SMU's associate dean of external relations and practice assistant professor of law Rathna Nathan confirmed that all 116 students from its pioneer batch obtained internships during this school vacation from May to this month.
But she denied that the school has arrangements with firms to allocate spots for its students.
'We would not have been able to place all of our students in internships without our partners, but they also choose students completely based on merit,' she said.
'Firms naturally also want to take the cream of the crop.'
Mr Jarrod Ng, human resource director of Wong Partnership, agreed. 'Every internship place in our firm is given based on merit,' he said. He did not have the figures for the number of SMU and NUS interns hired this year, but said the number this year and last, as well as the competition for places, have remained constant.
But an administrative officer with another top law firm revealed that 12 to 15 places are 'set aside' each month for SMU students, even though only about 50 per cent of these places are filled.
The firm hires roughly 30 interns each month.
NUS was unable to provide any figures for the number of students currently serving internships as it does not oversee an internship programme.
Professor Tan Cheng Han, dean of the NUS law faculty, said that while he has not heard of SMU booking internship spots for its students, he had anticipated that SMU would likely have to make such arrangements because of the school's mandatory internship requirement.
But he does not believe that this is why internships at big firms are hard to get, but rather because the large firms have not grown in proportion to the sharp increase in the number of law students here.
Before SMU started its law school in August 2007, the annual intake at NUS was about 220. This year, NUS alone has 250.
With an additional 116 SMU students from the pioneer batch, the total number of law students has almost doubled.
Prof Tan advised students not to be fixated on getting internships in the large firms. 'As a law student, I personally did not spend any time as an intern in a Singapore law firm. I valued my precious vacation time and spent it on student activities and sports,' he said.
