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Internships are What You Make of Them !
Good strong internships do not just happen. Any student who is planning to have an excellent internship must realize that what they take away from the experience will depend largely on how much they put into it. This sounds like a trite phrase but it is absolutely true.
An internship is a unique experience in which the student is engaged in practical work experience outside the classroom and normally off campus. The location of the internship site may be hundreds or even thousands of miles from the student's college or university. There are no formal classes, but rather a supervised experience where a student works with a skilled mentor in his/her field of study. Because it is an experiential form of learning for which a student receives credit the internship must operate as a three-person partnership if it is to be successful (Inkster and Ross, 1995). The partners are: 1) a faculty coordinator who consults with the student prior to the experience as to personal and professional considerations, how to locate an internship, academic expectations, assignments, evaluative criteria and who will assign a grade at the end. 2) A site supervisor at the organization sponsoring the internship. This person is a skilled professional who tutors the student in the practical application of classroom learning to problems and opportunities confronting the organization. The site supervisor also evaluates the student and gives clear constructive feedback throughout the internship. 3) The student whose focus is to refine his/her knowledge through engagement in real world problem solving and is the focal figure in the entire experience. The student is the one who stands to gain the most from the experience and therefore must make sure he/she secures the best possible internship to meet personal and professional needs, no one knows his/her aspirations as well as he/she do.
To achieve optimal success the student must understand that he/she is to be an active participant in learning. Unlike a typical course taught in a classroom an internship is a designed set of experiential, written and other activities that enable the student to synthesize what they have learned in the classroom in a work environment of their choosing.
The college/university will structure the internship by providing specific guidelines for the student to follow such as the length of the experience, number of credits to be earned, general assignments and evaluation criteria. Although the experience is organized by the college/university, it is the student's responsibility to enter into the specific content development of the internship as an equal partner with a serious interest in achieving personal and professional goals and a successful outcome.
To begin their venture into this three-way partnership it is paramount that the student fully understands the entire internship process and the relative responsibilities of the faculty coordinator, the student and the site supervisor. This understanding will enable the student to establish realistic expectations for the interactions of the three partners.
The student should write down several professional and personal goals to be achieved as a result of the internship. Development of these desired outcomes should be done prior to the student seeking an internship position. This will enable the student to determine which opportunities match his/her interests. To be useful the goals must be shared as early as possible with the faculty coordinator and eventually the site supervisor, as they will provide guidance to all three of the internship partners.
The student should seek experiences that will: 1) challenge his/her abilities, 2) enable him/her to demonstrate his/her knowledge and skills, 3) enable them to gain new knowledge, skills and competencies that they did not have before the internship began and 4) position him/her to achieve personal and professional goals.
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