<p>I am contemplating signing up for an internship for 3 credit hours next semester. The class itself is run by my department and meets a couple of times a month, and there are evaluations/reports due periodically. Other than that, you work 10-15 hours a week at an internship related to the major. I am going to be applying soon for some pretty competitive programs/scholarships - semester in DC fellowship, study abroad scholarship, etc. Do you think taking internships for credit is frowned upon by scholarship committees? My thinking was that so many people take the full course load WHILE also having a job/internship, so filling up that 3 credit hours with the internship might be viewed as a copout. </p>
<p>Any opinions? Thanks!</p>
<p>EDIT: I apologize for reflexively posting this in the parents' forum - I just tend to get so many more helpful and constructive answers here than in College Life.</p>
<p>Why would it be a disadvantage if the OP is working 15 hours at a job related to the internship? Or does it vary by field?</p>
<p>My daughter’s field it is almost impossible to get paid internships. About the only way to do an internship is to do an unpaid one, which then requires you to have education credit and pay for a “class”. Cost a fortune for her internship last summer between paying for 3 credit hours and commuting back and forth to her internship every day.</p>
<p>“Why would it be a disadvantage if the OP is working 15 hours at a job related to the internship?”
I meant that he would be at a disadvantage compared to other students who have done outside research/ internships, in addition to doing research / internships during the school year a part of a college program.
All outside paid or even unpaid internships do not have to be associated with a college sponsored class or program that costs $$.</p>
<p>Not to hijack my own thread, but just out of curiosity, WHY do so many internships require students to earn credit? I mean, what do they gain from it? I found an amazing paid summer internship but the cost of credit at my school puts the net amount of money I’d be earning at almost nothing…</p>
<p>btw, menloparkmom, I have had other (non-credit) internships and I currently have a job.</p>
<p>It is because an internship is required to be paid unless the intern is getting an education benefit from it. So if you can not get credit, they must pay you.</p>
<p>The law was put in place to protect students from being used as unpaid workers. But it ends up meaning that (in some fields), not only are they unpaid but they must pay for the privilege. My daughter enjoyed her intern experience a lot. but having to pay tuition and fees for it seemed crazy to me. My son, in a different field, had a for pay internship one summer that paid $15 an hour and did not provide academic credit. I think it really helped him get a job.</p>
<p>“btw, menloparkmom, I have had other (non-credit) internships and I currently have a job.”
In that case ignore my first post. You had not mentioned those in your first post so it was in that context [ you are competing against students who have probably have more internships ,that my first post was written . Good luck with the programs you are applying to!</p>
<p>" Do you think taking internships for credit is frowned upon by scholarship committees? My thinking was that so many people take the full course load WHILE also having a job/internship, so filling up that 3 credit hours with the internship might be viewed as a copout. "</p>
<p>Well, if you take the internship course in addition to another 12 credits, you will be taking an internship on top of a full course load, just as you believe your future competitors are doing.</p>
I believe nowadays, by law, an unpaid internship must be associated with a college class for credit. If it is not, then the internship must be paid. So some fields will require that their internships receive college credit because they do not want to pay their interns. And, at the colleges I am familiar with, you have to then pay for the credit.</p>
<p>When my daughter was looking at internships in her field, very few if any were paid. Still a valuable experience. Being paid would certainly have been nice.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, swimcatsmom. My D has had several recent unpaid internships which she was not required to pay for credit for, but they were with the federal government. The link talks about for-profit private sector internships, I assume that must make a difference.</p>
<p>A good internship supervisor at your university will act as a liaison with the intern supervisor at your job to make sure you have an experience with clearly defined substantive goals – ideally matched up with an mentored by a specific person within the organization – which will give you some sort of tangible project which you can walk away with. (In other words, authoring a report, analyzing data, etc.) </p>
<p>Then, if you are ever in an interview and someone suggests that “hey, it was just an internship. It’s not like it was a real job”, you can pull a neatly bound report or other document out of your briefcase, and say something along the lines of “actually, let me show you the project that I completed during that assignment.” </p>
<p>Provided you make sure that it’s a substantive internship with clearly defined goals and a tangible product, and that you indicate that on your resume, etc. you shouldn’t have any problems with it not being taken seriously or looking bad on your applications, etc.</p>