Center for Internships & Career Development

Internships

What are internships?

Internships and externships (like a “mini-internship”) are becoming an increasingly important part of a liberal arts education. Those graduating with a liberal arts background find themselves in diverse workforce settings, and would benefit from hands-on experience in preparation for their future careers. The College of Liberal Arts is dedicated to providing a wealth of internship opportunities for its majors.

Why do an internship?

Internships offer you the opportunity to link your liberal arts degree with workplace experience in a structured, supervised setting.

Internships might also entail:

Applying theoretical knowledge to real situations
Learning all kinds of new things
Re-learning old things in new ways
Making connections that will be useful for your career
Receiving on-the-job training
Landing a job!

Temple students have the benefit of internship opportunities throughout Philadelphia and the 5-county area, as well as New Jersey. Most internships involve between 10 and 30 hours of work per week throughout the semester. Each department makes its own determination regarding the number of credits available to its students for the internship experience, as well as how those credits will be allotted.

Where can I do an internship as a Liberal Arts major?

Anywhere! But here is a sample list to whet your appetite.

When should I do an internship?

We suggest that students strongly consider doing an internship by the end of their Sophomore year, at least by their Junior year, and definitely by their Senior year. However, ambitious students have been known to pursue internships even earlier in their academic careers. Regardless, as important as internships are for gaining professional experience and clarifying career goals, they should not detract from a student’s ability to maintain solid academic status. Thus, the benefit of waiting a year or so to pursue an internship would be that it would give the student time to settle into college life and establish solid academic credentials and other connections. But…

Don’t wait to do an internship until you think you finally know exactly what it is you want to do for the rest of your life!

First of all, that’s a tall order anyway! Second, if you do come to have a clear sense of what it is you want to do, you may not know this until much later in your academic career. So, do an internship even if you think you MIGHT be interested in a particular field, but are not quite sure. It’s better to confirm one way or another…and better earlier than later!

It’s win-win…

You do an internship and it confirms for you that you want to work in that field = WIN
But maybe you do an internship and it confirms for you that you do NOT want to work in that field = WIN
It may save you some agony down the road and help toward clarifying your career goals.

How do I get started?

The short version — see our Simple Steps sheet.

Fill out a “Determining My Interests” form. Fill out this form in advance of your CICD appointment or attach it to a general letter of inquiry through e-mail.

Meanwhile, for in-depth and useful information pertaining to internships…from “Preparations” to “Expectations,” from “Setting Goals” to “Jumpstarting Your Career,” from “Attitude and Personality” to “Workplace Ethics”…we recommend that you take a look at our Student Internship Manual.

How do I receive credit for my internship?

Basically, academic credit is awarded through academic departments. Moreover, not surprisingly, if academic departments are to award credit, they want to make sure there is some kind of academic component in conjunction with the internship placement.

Different academic departments facilitate this process differently. Some offer actual internship courses, where all assignments and projects are built into the course. Other departments have “fieldwork” offerings. Still other departments try and accommodate students through some kind of independent study, often faculty-sponsored.

To clarify, the CICD does not itself offer credit for internship placements. The best place to start would be your department’s Internship Coordinator. If there is no such person, then your Undergraduate Director or Faculty Advisor would be the next best person. If you do not know this information, check your department’s web site. If you still cannot find out what you need to know, contact the CICD!