By serving as an internship faculty, you are facilitating a crucial component in your students’ education. Academic internships (as opposed to noncredit internships) are intended for the student to have the opportunity to take what they have learned in your classroom and apply it to the professional world. After the internship, their learning from their experiences comes back into the classroom in the form of a more in-depth understanding and a new way of looking at the theories they study. Students who have had academic internships are stronger academically and are both better prepared and more competitive upon graduation for either their new careers or graduate school.
Your role is to challenge the students academically and facilitate their learning while in the internship. An internship isn’t meant to be an automatic “A.” It should be as rigorous and thought-provoking as any other upper-level course.
This page provides an overview of services available through the Career Center that can be useful to faculty as they guide students in internships or help them bridge their classroom experiences with career interests. Staff in the Career Center welcome the opportunity to collaborate with faculty to provide students with solid guidance on how to turn their academic knowledge into professional success. Click on the links below to view the faculty manual:
- Section 1: An Overview of Career Center Programmatic Areas
- Section 2: Specific Support for Supervising Internships
Section 1: An Overview of Career Center Programmatic Areas
Below are brief descriptions of the three main programmatic units in the Career Center. Although the Internship Programs unit is your main point of contact for supervising internships, the other units also can provide useful support to you in working with internship or classroom students.
Internship Programs:
Provides support to students, faculty and employers with regard to credit-based internships. Staff advise students on all aspects of an internship, work with employers to develop appropriate internship work sites, support faculty in programming and syllabus development, and conduct workshops.
Career Planning:
Provides advising, recruitment and resource library services to students for general career planning and job search activities. Staff advise students, develop employer relationships and run programs, such as On-Campus Recruiting, résumé referral, and job fairs, that help students connect with hiring employers. Staff also work one-on-one or in groups with students to help them with decision-making related to choosing majors and career paths, planning for graduate school, or seeking employment.
Office of Merit Awards:
Provide comprehensive support and mentoring to students who plan to seek competitive, merit based scholarships from non-AU sources, such as the Marshall, Rhodes, Truman and Fulbright scholarships.
Staff in these areas bring expertise in the fields of career planning and experiential learning as well as in depth knowledge of the career fields about which they advise. For contact names in each unit and their major field areas, see the "Internship and Career Advisor Listing" in the appendix.
Section 2: Specific Support for Supervising Internships
Internship Programs staff can consult with you on every stage of the process, from developing a syllabus to rounding out the term. Below is an overview of the various aspects of supervising internships and our services relating to each. In depth information on many of these topics can be found later in this manual. Staff in the Career Center are available to answer any questions you have about our resources or to develop customized programming to meet your needs.
Academic Regulations Relating to Internship Supervision
American University has a strong commitment to experiential education and has established guidelines for the structure and supervision of credit-based internships. These regulations provide university-wide standards while allowing for departmental flexibility. For a full copy of the regulations, click here.
Syllabus Design
The section titled "Best Practices for Supervising Internships" includes ideas for developing a syllabus that maximizes the experiential learning potential of internships. These ideas are based on our more than 25 years of experience working with faculty and our involvement in the cooperative education and experiential education communities nationwide. Included you will find an overview of components to include, distinctions in academic assignments for undergraduates and graduates, expectations, reflection topics, and ideas for assignments.
Collaborating on Course Content for Internships
One of the most important components to successful experiential education is reflection. As students go through different developmental stages with their internships, it is critical for them to be able to process their experiences, learn from them, and apply the learning to new situations. Faculty with a number of internship students often choose to meet with the students on a regular basis in a seminar format. Internship advisors regularly collaborate with faculty to offer workshops, lectures, and other programming for interns. While advisors would be happy to work with you in any area, the following are a list of topics you may find most appropriate. Call your Internship Advisor to discuss.
Identifying the Right Experience:
Setting up the right experience is more than finding a good position. It's laying a foundation for a successful internship. This workshop quickly reviews elements in finding the right internship, phases of an internship, then discusses establishing mutual expectations, lines of communication, ethics and attitudes that should be considered in the first few days of the experience.
Internship Reflection
Through guided discussion, students have the opportunity to share with each other their experiences and their insights from their internship . Facilitators will help students identify areas of development, emerging problems, and strategies for success.
On-line Reflection
This seminar is delivered via the internet and is especially appropriate for groups of students that cannot meet at the same time and place. The virtual reflection has had very good success with students from the College of Arts and Sciences and from the School of International Service, both graduate and undergraduate.
Workplace Issues
Specific issues often arise for one student in a given semester that provide learning opportunities for all the interns. These workshops can address issues as the come up, as well as preventing problems before they develop.
Workplace Relationships
What are the different roles and expectations we have as we interact in a professional setting? What is considered appropriate and what isn't? These and other relationship issues are addressed.
Workplace Conflict Resolution
What are the appropriate steps and who are the people students can turn to for help? This session helps students understand conflict dynamics and steps to resolution.
Dealing with Difficult Issues
As an intern, you wouldn't expect to have to deal with anything too controversial. But in an office, this can occur. This session helps students identify systemic problems, abuses, and ethical concerns and discusses strategies and choices an intern can utilize. Dealing with Difficult People When you want to know what to do with a coworker who makes your day miserable, quitting isn't the answer!!! This session identifies work styles, personality types, and strategies for dealing with and working with people who seem to push your buttons.
Appropriate Workplace Behavior
You may know that dating your boss isn't appropriate, but this session covers the more subtle norms in the professional world and what to do when lines are crossed.
Networking and Networking Receptions
Where do I go? What do I say? How do I introduce myself? How do I make sure there isn't spinach between my teeth? This workshop and accompanying simulation teaches strategies for getting over nerves and making the best impression while learning more about a field and the people in it.
>Portfolio Development
If a student wants to have something tangible to show for the efforts of an internship, this session can help students identify valuable portfolio components, presentation styles, and appropriate ways of using the material.
Presentation Skills
Many of our students develop to be extremely knowledgeable in their fields, but without the skills to communicate their ideas, their insights remain locked away. This workshop can help students identify their strengths and preferred presentation styles, as well as the elements to an effective presentation.
Speakers from the Profession
Depending on the needs and wants of the students, intern advisors can work with faculty to recruit individual speakers or a panel of presenters to discuss various aspects of the field. General Career Planning Workshops The Career Center presents general career planning workshops throughout the year. Faculty can direct their students to these, or request a special time for the workshop to be delivered to a full class.