My daughter’s school has an internship program and career day on campus for students, but lets only juniors on up apply. My sophomore daughter is frustrated. We are tying to think of jobs she can do during the summer to give her any sort of arch experience . . .
Some of the firms who interview on campus have internships posted on career websites outside of the college; she thinks those are fair game so she’ll apply at those for sure.
@bgbg4us, My son did a graduate degree in architecture so his experience isn’t exactly comparable to your daughter’s, but in general the availability of summer internships was relative to the state of the economy.
His first summer when the architecture market was dead as a doornail, he lived at home and worked unpaid for an architect who was also a family friend. That year nobody in his class had much luck in finding good internships. Later things loosened up. The second summer he found an internship overseas, that was offered by an alumnus of his architecture school. And the third year he worked at the firm of one of his visiting professors. He initiated the request. In the last two cases, the firms paid a token stipend and contributed to airfare and some housing. All in all the remuneration was meager, but the experience was excellent.
Architecture is doing quite well now and I would imagine that internships are easier to come by. Whether they are paid or not depends on the firm. Being willing or able to accept an unpaid position affords more flexibility.
I would suggest that your daughter try to get an introduction to someone at a firm near your home so she doesn’t have to worry about housing. She might also talk to visiting professors or critics who are working architects, especially if she has a good relationship with them.
@momrath - Wow I’m really amazed by what you’ve said. My D landed a summer job easily and continued working there during grad school. I forgot how cyclical Architecture is.
I know its been awhile - but I wanted to add to this in case anyone looks at this in the future.
So my D did get an internship after her sophomore architecture year in a facilities planning department. It did NOT come through her arch college’s career fair, but elsewhere. It was great experience; and she can go back after her junior year if she’d like. My point: keep looking around!
D2 was able to get an internship with a women’s clothing retailer as a window display/sales floor designer. Although it wasn’t an architecture internship, it was in design and she wound up using some of that acquired experience later on in her professional career.
That summer she also developed a list of local architecture firms and sent all of them letters expressing an interest in working for them as a summer intern. That paid off since she did get an internship at a local firm for her remaining summers.