MSU's Career Services and Placement is now offering a way for students to go online and retrieve portfolios of their work.
"It was kind of an archaic system," said Linda Gross, assistant director of Career Services and Placement. "We'd have to look it up in a file. We knew going to a Web-based system would be better."
The center began a partnership Jan. 1 with Interfolio, Inc., a 4-year-old organization created for the purpose of holding credentials for students. Since then, about 20 MSU students have signed up for the service.
Gross said students can put any sort of credentials - résumés, letters of recommendation or writing samples - in the portfolios, just as the student could have done with MSU's paper version of the service.
But there are differences.
"They say if you get your credentials in by 2 (p.m.), it'll go out by 5," Gross said, pausing to laugh. "We can't do that."
Students using Interfolio's services can access their portfolio 24 hours a day instead of only during work hours, when many of them might not find the time.
Gross said students often had difficulty in reaching her department to access their portfolios.
"The phone tag stuff was just incredible," she said.
"It looks like it's going to be a really positive thing for students. The initial response from students is that this is really, really great."
Gross said Career Services and Placement looked into several large universities which use the company for student-credential help before making the decision to go with them.
The center is phasing out its credential program and as of June 30 will no longer manage the files. At present, they hold more than 3,000 files of students. Gross said without having to manage the portfolios, they can focus more on helping students with any career questions they might have.
The new service will cost $12 per year for each student, but MSU will foot the bill for the first year if students create an account before June 30.
"We felt really strongly about that, because it's a new fee and students don't have a lot of money," Gross said.
Steve Goldenberg, president and founder of Interfolio, Inc., said there are 15,000 students using the service from all over the country, but "it's open to anyone who wants an electronic portfolio."
Goldenberg said the most common people to use the service are graduate students, students applying to medical school and education students.
"Basically any type of work any student creates through their academic career will go in that portfolio," he said.
Civil engineering senior Jeremy Smith said he would consider signing up for the service, but most likely won't.
"It's easy to keep doing what you've always done," he said, adding the $12 annual fee wouldn't matter to him. "Twelve dollars isn't going to break a student."
