Characteristics of a Quality Internship:
- Position description: includes accurate information about the roles and responsibilities, and serves as the foundation for effective performance management. Responsibilities match the student’s experience/abilities– allows the student to excel and offers appropriate challenges.
- Orientation: Interns should be oriented to the responsibilities of the internship, as well as mission and history of the organization, people they need to know, the physical setting, communication expectations, and to the policies & procedures that affect their work (i.e., sexual harassment policies, confidentiality, drug/alcohol policies, etc.).
- Learning goals and strategies: Student is actively involved in developing learning goals and strategies as well as reflecting on those goals/strategies along with site supervisor.
- Evaluation: Student and site supervisors are actively engaged in performance assessment/evaluation throughout the experience, with ample opportunity for feedback and reconsideration of goals and strategies. It is very valuable for interns to gain insight into their specific strengths and weaknesses.
- Real-work situation: Experience is shaped by problems/pressures arising from a real-work situation.
- Positive supervision/mentorship: The willingness to guide and help interns improve their performance will facilitate a better communication and understanding between the supervisor(s) and the interns.
Tips to Ensure a Successful Internship Experience:
- Major doesn’t often matter – St. Olaf students are receiving a liberal arts education and can provide your organization with a broad range of transferable skills, such as communication, critical thinking, analytical ability, etc.
- Clear expectations — Setting clear expectations at the beginning of an internship is a key factor to success.
- Supervisor as teacher — Embrace your role as co-teacher of a student intern, and work with the Piper Center staff to troubleshoot issues as you develop your own expertise in supervising interns.
- Reality Check — It is crucial for interns to experience the realities of working in a professional organization, including the vital importance of deadlines, the interdependence of team members, and the necessity of doing the tasks that may be less glamorous or less interesting in addition to those that are more stimulating and challenging.
- The Big Picture — Even if an intern is assigned a specific project or task, it is important to spend time helping the student see how her/his work fits in the context of the wider organizational mission, the context in which the organization operates, and relevance to the intern’s prior learning, plans, and goals.