Experience More. Explore What’s Next.
Experience More. Explore What’s Next.
Internships are an important part of experiential learning. Taking what you as a student have learned in the classroom and applying it in a professional setting. It is also an important step in securing a position after graduation, as more and more employers are seeking students who have had internship experience during their undergraduate studies. At Wartburg, internships, field experiences, and job shadowing are required in some majors and encouraged in all majors. The Center for Careers, Vocation & Purpose offers resources to assist with resume and cover letter development, mock interviewing, and guidance on potential internships in the Cedar Valley.
All internships that earn academic credit must demonstrate learning objectives and academic goals and performance, including integration of theory and practice. Just as in the traditional classroom there are learning objectives and learning strategies that differ from class to class and from discipline to discipline, so too different internships in different disciplines and at different internship sites will have distinct learning objectives that may be accomplished through a wide range of learning activities. Faculty, students, and site supervisors have the freedom to negotiate academic goals and requirements appropriate to the specific internship; what is non-negotiable is that there be specific academic learning goals that require reflection, in some form, upon the work experience.
A carefully- and mutually-designed internship project is often effective in ensuring academic and integrative learning. While methods of evaluating academic goals may vary, common activities include: term paper, daily log/journal, portfolio, or summary presentation.
Because internships are learning partnerships, it is important for faculty and site supervisors to share responsibility for teaching and mentoring students. This means that some regular interaction (through personal visits, email, phone calls, or letters) is important.
At all phases of the internship process, the Internship Coordinator will serve as a resource to students, faculty, and the site supervisor. Specific facilitation may be useful with student reflection and goal-development; site-identification; learning contract development; internship etiquette training; maintenance of partnership with internship site; evaluation and assessment of internship.
Individual departments have their own policies and procedures for internships, above and beyond those found here. Each department chair can provide that information. Most internships are graded P/D/F, however, it is a departmental option to propose to the EPC that their department assign a letter grade.
Internship creation is usually handled by individual faculty members and students, with the help of the internship coordinator. Internships involve both a site supervisor and a faculty supervisor, so that the student may learn from both. The faculty supervisor may or may not be the student’s advisor, but should offer appropriate disciplinary and professional expertise. Departments manage their own supervisory arrangements, however.
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Financial
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Medical
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Waverly Area
Other Area Businesses
Responsibilities of the Student
Responsibilities of Community Partner/Site Supervisor
Responsibilities of the Faculty Supervisor and/or Internship Coordinator
(Balance and collaboration to be determined by those parties, except as noted.)
Internships are one kind of experiential learning, which means they are a method of learning through experience. Experiential education is based on research that shows students learn better when they are engaged in experiencing that which they are studying. Experiential education also hinges on the integration of theory with practice, experience with reflection. Many disciplines and professions have used internships for much of their history, and many more are adopting them now as a way to enhance academic learning, enrich integrative and reflective opportunities, and promote work/career development. Because internships are also community partnerships, they can serve as vehicles for greater campus-community engagement. Thus, internships provide students with a unique opportunity to integrate academic learning with professional preparation and grounded, community-based experience as part of their vocational discernment and participation.
Email and Social Media Etiquette
Dress for Success
Elevator Speech and Interviewing