Revolutionizing the Traditional Internship

Career development is an integral part of any undergraduate experience as it helps students to really focus in on what they want to pursue in their future and helps make sure they are completing all the necessary steps to get there. One key step of the career development process is the internship. Securing an internship during college allows students to test-drive their chosen field of study to discover what they like and what they don’t like about the field, network with professionals already in the field, and practice applying classroom knowledge to real life. ASU has assisted students with this step of the career development process by including an internship requirement for a handful of degree programs. While this is a really great requirement in order to make sure students are prepared for the real world, ASU’s resolve to only give students credit for the traditional internships that they take part in is becoming incredibly detrimental to the learning experience of students as their options, especially in the pandemic world we currently find ourselves in, are increasingly limited. Finding an internship to fulfill this requirement is harder than it has ever been. Organizations simply don’t have internship spots available, and the organizations that do have very limited hands-on work experiences that they’re able to provide their interns with. One solution to this is providing on-campus student leaders the option to get class credit towards their degree for the work they do in their positions. The career development and experience that student leaders receive when they’re in their on-campus positions is virtually unparalleled in any traditional internship setting and should be treated as such in our academic society. If we were able to change the way society views the traditional internship, not only would this help alleviate some of the stress our student leaders feel when searching for and completing an internship during this time, but it would also encourage students to return to campus and participate in the ASU community in a positive way.