Ready for the challenges and rewards of an internship?
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How does it work? |
Scheduling: When you enroll in the "Academic Internship Program," as listed in the AHS catalog, you will have it added to your schedule like any other Honors-level class. The Internship program is generally put in as your G-block class so that you can leave campus early to get to your worksite. The Internship is usually just a fall semester class, but you may extend it into the Spring if you would like. Most internships happen during the weekdays, but many do happen in the evenings or weekends. It depends on the needs of the site. This can make it challenging to play a sport, so that is something to consider when choosing an internship.
Requirements: You will have an orientation and basic training in September. Grading requirements include monthly journal submissions, supervisor feedback, group meetings, individual meetings with the Internship Director and presentation of your culminating project. Host Sites: Currently we have an ever-expanding variety of sites in different career fields from local nonprofits to corporations, banks, government offices and some healthcare settings. We are open to additional sites you may suggest if they can meet the requirements of the program. Final Project: We see it as a kind of “give back” project that you develop with your supervisor in order to provide a significant support to the site that is appropriate to the work of the site. It should be meaningful to you and to the host. This is something you should come to an agreement about with your host early on in the internship. Payment: Because you are earning school credit you should not be paid for your first five hours of work per week. Some sites may choose to pay you for additional hours per week. Some sites may be required to pay you for insurance purposes. College Perspective: A lot of colleges are excited to see that students have extended themselves beyond traditional classrooms and push themselves to learn to do real life work, develop perseverance and interpersonal skills. Tasks: We cannot promise you will never be assigned mundane tasks, but in all the internships that we develop we make sure you are doing real and meaningful work and we ask the hosts to give you work related to mission of their organization Orientation Week: This is the first year that Arlington's Internship Program has done an interactive workshop. A lot of the students took away lesson that they would not only carry throughout their internship this year but, also while they pursue future careers. Here are some of the techniques and lessons they are taking with them. What was the most valuable skill you learned from orientation? "Effective communication skills, because those are important for life as a member of the workforce." "The most valuable skill I learned is to not be afraid to ask for more work if I am already finished with the given task. This internship is an opportunity for me to learn new things in computer science and decide if it's a right career path for me, so the more work I do, the more knowledge I will gain." "The most valuable skill that I learned from orientation is the eye contact is important. Eye contact is the most uncomfortable thing for me, I don't know how much is eye contact is too much or too little, so I barely make eye contact. Now, I know what sort of eye contact to make and when to make them". Which orientation activities taught you the most and made you feel more prepared? "I liked being able to listen to our guests on the last day. I think that actually helped me the most when it comes to college looking. Like you don't always know what you want to do and hearing other people say that reassured me" "The activity that taught me the most and made me feel more prepared was the stretched activities. I am not the person that just goes up to someone and starts a conversation, so that activity when we had to walk to someone we didn't know and talk about our internship helped. It was sort of scary just talking to a person about your internship, but as we did it more, it become more natural." |
Our History |
The AHS Internship Program began five years ago with a handful of AHS students. This fall you and more than 40 of your classmates can participate in the AHS Internship Program in over 30 locations where supervisors are ready to guide you in learning the ropes in a workplace setting. Your weekly work and internship project will help your supervisor and can contribute new knowledge and have a notable impact at your worksite. You will also be making the AHS community a better place by sharing what you’ve learned in your internship: you will be presenting your experiences at the end of the internship to younger AHS students, helping to shape their plans for an internship in the future.
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