Internships
What is an internship?
Internships are another increasingly common form of experiential learning. The idea is to provide students with direct experience in a work setting—usually related to their career interests—and to give them the benefit of supervision and coaching from professionals in the field. If the internship is taken for course credit, students complete a project or paper that is approved by a faculty member. (Definition from AAC&U LEAP, 2008).
What are the characteristics of an internship?
The key characteristics of Internships include: applying learning from different classes to solve real world problems and providing students with first hand experience of the workplace issues. Additional characteristics outlined by the Texas A&M Career Center include:
An internship is an interest or major-related work experience with a learning component.
Internships may or may not offer academic credit.
Internships may or may not offer pay. This is determined by the organization for which the student is working for.
An internship often provides students with the opportunity to explore career interests.
How can you facilitate a meaningful internship experience?
According to Williams (1976), internships advisors should:
Work with interns to define goals and objectives and insure the academic quality of the internship
Maintain close contact with interns helping them maximize their learning opportunities, providing counseling, and aiding in reflecting on their experiences
Establish procedures for evaluating the internship experience
Why should reflection be used to facilitate this high-impact practice?
Students will gain an invaluable experience about the relevant workplace issues in their disciplines when they undergo an internship. Students will also be exposed to the techniques and strategies to work collaboratively with their team members under guidance and supervision from their mentors. However, having had the experience does not mean that students have learned from them. Integrating reflection activities that will prompt students to identify what they have learned from their positive and negative internship experiences will prepare them for addressing future challenges they will likely face as they interact with others to complete a task.
How can reflection be implemented in this high-impact environment?
Select from the questions below based on the integrative and lifelong learning outcomes and the TAMU student learning outcomes essential to your course or topic, adjusting the questions as needed to the level of students you are teaching.
Choose appropriate reflection activities.
Use the assessment descriptions below as a guideline for evaluating student reflections.
