Internship Guide

This guide will help you better understand the purpose of internships and serve as a resource for those thinking of hiring interns in the future. Internships are beneficial to both employers and students. They offer employers access to highly motivated students and the opportunity to fill temporary job openings, free your staff’s time for other projects, or ease your work load during busy times. Students benefit from internships by gaining hands-on experience and a chance to explore career options.

The Career Center supports internships by connecting students with employers, facilitating academic credit, and serving as a resource for both employers and students. UI strongly endorses internships and other experiential learning activities to help students progress in their personal and professional career development.

What is an internship?

An internship is a temporary hands-on learning experience that provides meaningful, career-related work that extends a student’s education beyond the classroom. At the UI, internships can be paid or unpaid, for credit or not for credit. Typically, the experience has a level of responsibility that allows a student to develop new skills and learn about their field of interest. Internships provide students training and supervision that facilitates learning.

Internships are NOT: 

• Jobs or volunteer work that provides little or no opportunity for students to learn about their career of interest. 
• Jobs or volunteer work that provides little or no training and supervision.