What is The Epic Advantage?
Earlham is one of only a handful of colleges and universities in the United States to offer a funded internship, research, and other career discerning experiences to all students. These opportunities can take place during the academic year or during the summer and are best suited for students who have completed at least one year at Earlham. The Epic Advantage is one of the life-changing components of a student’s Epic Journey, which continues beyond graduation.
How Does It Work?
Earlham provides all students access to The Epic Advantage. Shaped by students’ academic interests and career aspirations, this program is designed to support highly-focused, career-discerning internship, research, and community-based project opportunities. Earlham provides expert advising to help students identify possibilities, discern what would be best for their goals, and secure skill-building placements. The College is committed to supporting students and their experiences, regardless of whether those take place locally, across the United States, or in other countries. Epic Advantage experiences build on an Earlham education, all of which is designed for students who move the world forward.
Ways to Use Epic Advantage
Faculty-Led Experiences
Collaborative Research
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- Designed to engage in collaborative research or learn about specific research methods, these programs occur during the summer for approximately three weeks. Students apply during fall semester for programs during the upcoming summer.
Community Projects
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- Designed to partner with an existing community organization in ongoing work or on an identified need, these programs occur during the summer for approximately three weeks. Students apply during fall semester for programs during the upcoming summer.
Independent Student Experiences
Internships/Micro-Internships
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- Designed to work with an existing outside organization, Epic Advantage internships/micro-internships provide meaningful, project-based work experience. These experiences can range from 45 hours to 8+ weeks in length.
Practicum/Field Study
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- Designed to work with an existing outside organization providing experiential learning opportunities that have an instructional component and may require ethnographic, scientific, or other reflection. These can range from 2-6+ weeks in lengths.
Professional and Educational Training/Certification
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- Designed to work with an existing outside organization providing ready-made training or certification program from a third-party vendor that will allow you to develop and/or grow specific skills related to your intended career path.
More Information
About the Donors
The Epic Advantage is powered by a $7.5 million leadership gift from Alan ’74 and Peg Kral Scantland ’74, of Columbus, Ohio. The Scantlands have chosen to honor these life-changing experiences through their philanthropy. Their gift is to be used for personalized vocational mentoring, career-discerning internships and highly-focused student research projects.
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Read more about the Scantlands
After graduating from Earlham, Peg wrote and edited elementary and high school textbooks, worked as an adult literacy tutor and stayed home to raise their children, Pete, Matt and Susan Scantland Littleton ’05.
Alan earned his master’s degree in agricultural economics, a key integration point of science and the business world, from The Ohio State University in 1976 and was hired by Battelle as an agricultural economist. He later held positions in the prescription services industry with Express-Med and Member Health. In 2009, Alan joined cofounders Matt Scantland (son) and Sam Rajan to launch CoverMyMeds (CMM) – an innovative healthcare IT company.
CoverMyMeds, based in Columbus, Ohio, is the leader in electronic prior authorization for prescription drugs, providing physicians and pharmacists with tools to help millions of patients per month maneuver through healthcare paperwork to get prescribed medications easily and quickly.
Through CoverMyMeds, the Scantlands’ wish was “to create a fast-growing profitable company that served a social good and produced best in-class product in a non-bureaucratic environment where both customers and employees were trusted and treated as we do our families.”
The Scantlands’ gift is the largest alumni gift in the College’s history, and the largest single gift Earlham has received since Eli Lilly’s “Magnificent Gift” of $25 million in 1973.