<p>What happens if your school will not offer academic credit for internships? Does that mean that the internship you are applying for will not consider you?</p>
<p>there's usually a loophole around it.
for instance, my school doesn't formally award credit for internships, but i wouldn't have been able to accept my current internship without a letter of credit eligibility. if it's an internship, i'm sure any professor you've had or your advisor or a career center rep would be happy to write a letter on school letterhead so that you do get the internship, regardless of the policy.</p>
<p>crazy... why don't schools offer academic credit for an internship? It's a learning experience, a very valuable one at that.</p>
<p>usually the internships that specifically say they will give you academic credit are non paid and stuipd because they just want somoene to work for free. If a company really wants you as an intern/future employee they will be willing to pay you at least 10/hr.</p>
<p>what about both? My school requires an internship if you are in the business school... most of the internships are paid and you get academic credit... the internship starts with the student and hiring manager setting pre-set learning objectives that are approved by the school's internship coordinator... and then the student meets with others doing internships in business areas, and each class member writes three papers throughout the semester about their experience--networking is also taught since it is likely that students from the same school may cross paths again during their careers. It's pretty effective.</p>
<p>BTW, even if a company isn't serious about keeping you on board after an internship it still looks good on your resume.</p>
<p>"what about both?"</p>
<p>Both is fine; i'm just saying if a company pays you that means they are serious about you interning.</p>
<p>"BTW, even if a company isn't serious about keeping you on board after an internship it still looks good on your resume."</p>
<p>I agree, experience > no experience and crappy experience (retail, minimum wage jobs)</p>
<p>I worked as a non paid intern and I think the experience really opened up doors to other internship opportunities.</p>
<p>while i do see where you're coming from, i think in some industries, the desire and competition for a small number of internship positions is so great that they can do non-paid "credit" internships and still have floods of resumes and applications sent in. to them it shows how much YOU want to be there that you're willing to take nothing for it.</p>
<p>In general, I don't recommend working for free, but there are some industries where you need to do what you can to break in.</p>
<p>To do an unpaid internship, you're going to need to convince your school to give you credit for it. It's illegal for a company to employ you and not compensate you--unpaid internships get around this by offering you academic credit as compensation. You'll either have to convince your school or the company will have to find another way to compensate you.</p>
<p>Schools don't like to offer credit for internships because they'd rather be able to charge you for the units you're getting.</p>
<p>My school offers academic credit, but only when you take a class through the school in addition to the internship. So that you have to pay for the units that you're earning.</p>
<p>"My school offers academic credit, but only when you take a class through the school in addition to the internship. So that you have to pay for the units that you're earning."</p>
<p>Are you sure it's an actual class? Usually you register for a "class" called "Internship" or something to that effect so that there's a record of you receiving the credits (and that they can charge you); however, there's usually no actual class time involved.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are you sure it's an actual class?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In my school it's an actual class, but only meets 3x for the semester for 1.5 hours each time, and the rest of the credit hours are earned on the job completing specific learning objective goals. The class time is used discussing the different students' experiences (through written papers, and oral presentations) and practicing networking skills since the class includes students from similar majors.</p>
<p>At UCLA, it's a class. Each department has a "field studies' class that you're required to take in addition to your internship, usually 3 hours/week. Most require a paper or two depending on how many hours per week your internship is. Plus usually guest speakers in the field. </p>
<p>It's most definitely a real class.</p>
<p>at duke in some areas there's classes on it-- it'll be like "media studies internship" or whatever and you meet once a week for a few hours at the professors discretion... you write papers, make presentations, there are speakers in the field.</p>