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Brandy McDowell

The National Society for Experiential Education defines an internship as "a carefully monitored work or volunteer experience in which an individual has intentional learning goals and reflects actively on what he or she is learning throughout the experience."

The key phrases in this definition are "carefully monitored," "intentional learning goals" and "reflects actively."

Why Consider an Internship?

An internship can help you:

  • Clarify educational and career goals.
  • Enhance classroom experiences and relevance.
  • Build skills, knowledge and vocabulary specific to field.
  • Network.
  • Increase marketability and earning potential.

Beginning Your Internship Search

  • Clarify goals. What do you want to gain by interning? Write down specific skills, knowledge and experiences you hope to acquire through an internship.
  • Check options. Career Services maintains a number of national and international internship directories in the resource library in addition to maintaining a list of online postings. Other places you can search for an internship:
    • Internet job search sites like monster.com
    • Professional association Web sites
    • Career fairs
    • Family, friends and neighbors
    • Faculty and advisers
    • Employers you find interesting
    • Remember, if you don't find an internship that suits your needs, you can always design your own internship.
  • Create a targeted list of sites that you believe will meet your needs.
  • Get your marketing tools ready: prepare a resume, write cover letters, purchase appropriate interview attire and prepare to present yourself.
  • Apply.
  • Follow-up.
  • Interview.
  • Follow-up with a thank you.
  • Evaluate your offers and make a decision.

Receiving Academic Credit

Visit with your academic adviser to discuss receiving credit for an internship experience.

When to Begin Your Search

Although some students are successful in landing an internship with a timeline of only a few months, it is wise to begin planning one year to one-and-a-half years in advance. Highly selective sites often have application deadlines six months to a year in advance of the actual start date for the internship.

Examples of Places to Intern

The possibilities are unlimited; however, following are some places CAFNR students have chosen in the past:

More Internship Ideas

Want more ideas? Try searching our job and internships resources sites.

Don't make the mistake of limiting your search to only those sites with advertised internships! Many sites will work with a good student to provide a learning experience over the semester or the summer.

Career Services can help you in communicating with employers if they have questions about internships. Here are some techniques for designing your own internship. Additionally, the Intern Supervising Handbook may provide valuable information for new internship sponsors.

Internship Expectations

Expect to: Don't expect to:
  • Meet your learning objectives.
  • Complete valuable work for your employer.
  • Do some "grunt" work.
  • Learn from the "grunt" work.
  • Become a careful observer.
  • Network.
  • Enhance your classroom learning.
  • Be respected by your supervisor and colleagues.
  • Make connections between classroom learning and real world applications.
  • Become wealthy.
  • Be offered a full-time position, although this happens with some degree of frequency.
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