Interns

Interns are current students or recent grads who join us on a temporary basis. They are always paid, unless they’re earning class credit.

Internships are, first and foremost, educational opportunities benefiting the intern. Getting useful work done is a win-win!

Responsibilities

Internships must have a written internship work plan that defines the educational goals, activities to be undertaken and/or work to be done on a weekly basis. While the plan may evolve, it should be in a complete, if preliminary, form within the first week of the internship.

Internship work plans should:

  1. Be milestone-oriented (i.e. have a beginning, middle, and end!), not just a list of tasks
  2. Identify who will provide technical or academic guidance
  3. Include a mid-point and final presentation of work either to their team or to the company as a whole. It is on the Sponsor to elicit participation by others in friendly, informal feedback sessions.

The work plan should align with our current or upcoming company needs. This is to not only make progress on our company goals, but also to ensure that their work is closely related to what the rest of us are working on, helping to facilitate the regular Sponsor engagement that will make the internship a positive experience on both sides.

There are a number of ways to structure an internship, which may depend on the experience level of the intern, the duration of the internship, and/or whether or not they are part of a cohort. When thinking about a potential internship position, the Sponsor should consider the following:

  • Project-oriented work (i.e., with a beginning, middle, and end) would be suited for graduates or more experienced interns, who may be better able to independently manage working towards an end goal. Note that this means the Sponsor has identified and framed out such a need in advance (see Internship Plan below for more details).

  • Alternatively, an intern may engage in practical learning by taking on specific day-to-day responsibilities or otherwise participating in some of more general workloads. This may be better suited for current undergraduates.

  • Solo vs. Cohort: If an intern joins us as part of a cohort (e.g., a group of summer interns), there may be opportunities for additional learning and benefits, such as:

    • Building comradery between interns experiencing a new work environment at the same time
    • Having the interns host a portion of the brown bag series, selecting topics or content and facilitating the conversations
    • If there is a cohort rotating through different groups or tasks, documenting their roles and training the next intern, which would help with onboarding and also help them absorb the learning.