Internship

An internship is a form of supervised experiential learning that combines critical thinking and intentional reflection within a framework of liberal arts or professional education. By completing internships, students are able to sharpen professional skills, develop career interests and employer contacts, assess strengths, and connect classroom theories to practical, real world settings. Internships offer employers the ability to evaluate and mentor upcoming talent.

A search for a valuable internship experience requires an investment of a good deal of time, dedication, patience, and effort on part of the student. Completing an internship search process empowers students to learn valuable career development skills that will be used in future employment searches for the rest of their careers.

Internship Types

Internships vary in their ability to provide the student payment and/or academic credit for the experience. The four basic internship types include:

1) credit and paid; 2) credit and unpaid; 3) independent and paid; and 4) independent and unpaid.

Ideally, the best scenario for a student is to receive credit and payment for their internship experience so that they are being propelled further towards graduation in completion of credits while receiving payment to offset the costs of completing the internship for credit.

While independent internships do not have a formal program of delivery at the University of Portland, these experiences are regarded as extremely formative for students to gain necessary professional skills, explore career interests, and develop employer contacts to be successful post-graduation.

Credit and site hour requirements for academic credit internships

Additional topics on internships at the University of Portland:

• What makes a quality internship?
• UP internship learning agreement for students
• Faculty resources
• Employer resources

For additional information, please visit the UP internship portal at www.up.edu/career/internship.