Hi Anne, and everyone else!
As a young professional transitioning from internships to entry level positions, I can attest to the value of longer internships. I recently completed an unpaid, 6-month internship in the exhibitions department at the Field Museum. Having already graduated college, I had time for a second part-time job - a huge advantage when taking on an unpaid internship. My boss was very upfront about the fact there was no compensation, and very willing to work with my work schedule; based on your post, it sounds like you are already sensitive to these factors.
The Field allows a maximum of 6 months for internships, though from my experience it seems most interns only work during the summer, and are college students already living in the Chicago area. I can't speak to the science-based internships, but working for 6 months in exhibitions allowed me to fully design a complete exhibit and be present for its opening/first month. This differed from the majority of the exhibition interns, who began work on an exhibition, but returned to school before the project was complete.
Other than the obvious benefits of practical experience, resume building, and forming connections, interns-only behind-the-scenes tours of the Field were offered, and our ID badges provided free or discounted admission for yourself and 1-2 guests to almost all of the museums in Chicago.
Hopefully this is helpful for your research!
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Sarah Daley, Interpretive Designer
sdaley@21cparks.orgThe Parklands of Floyds Fork
Louisville, Kentucky
www.theparklands.org
Original Message:
Sent: 12-06-2016 12:35 PM
From: Anne Lai
Subject: Effective Internship Program Structures
Dear all,
I work at a non-profit arts organization in NYC and coordinate our internship program, amongst my many other responsibilities. We have a staff of 25 full-time and 2 part-time employees and have 5 - 6 interns with us for each internship cycle. Interns pursue self-selected focuses for four months at about 16 - 20 hours per week with a direct supervisor. You can learn more about our current program here!
We are thinking of ways to improve the timing of when interns join us and extend the total time interns are with us. Currently, the internship cycles are structured to follow typical college semesters. Unfortunately, this means interns are starting with us and leaving us at periods of high activity at the organization and our staff find it difficult to train new folks and have fully-trained interns leave us at our busiest times.
What would work best for our organization is having two 6-month internship cycles: January - June and July - December. We have the sense it takes at least two months for interns to get comfortable and familiar with all our programs/processes at the organization. We are flexible, if interns need to shift more hours to another week to finish their final papers/prepare for mid-terms, etc. Our internship program is currently unpaid and provides a $125 travel stipend per month. We'd like to provide more and are continually looking at ways to improve the benefits we offer.
My concerns are with students, who will be unable to commit to a 6-month unpaid internship. However, I think their internship experience would be much more effective at this length and timing and both the intern and the organization would benefit.
My questions are:
- How are your internship programs structured in length and timing? Would 6 months seem like too long to ask?
- If your organization does have a 6 month/+ internship program, have you seen interns and your org benefit/not from this length? If you've recently changed to extend the internship period to 6 months or longer, did you see a significant drop in competitive internship candidates?
- If your organization pays interns and are willing to share more, I'd be interested to know and include in my research.
- What are other benefits/stipends you offer to interns?
Thank you for your time in reading this and I look forward to hearing your responses!
All my best,
Anne
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Anne Lai
Finance & Operations Manager
New York, NY
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