Dairy Science 272

Read on to learn some basic aspects of successful internships.

What Should Internship Providers know? Many employers face the challenge of recruiting and retaining talented employees within their organization. One strategy to help recruit and retain employees is to have a valuable internship program designed for potential future employees. The key to creating an internship program that produces valuable results is to develop an understanding of internship programs from the student?s perspective and how you, as an internship provider, might be able to align the student?s needs with those of your organization. For success in internship programs, employers should have the capacity in place:

• To set criteria in selecting students that will succeed;
• To understand what students expect from their internship experience (in particular learning goals);
• To define clearly what should be expected from a student intern within the organization (project-related activities);
• To share in writing how an intern will be evaluated during and at the end of the program.

Employers and interns need positive and mutually beneficial experiences. Creating successful internship is "beast of its own". Poorly planned internship program can be detrimental to the organization and the student. For example, it is important that internship providers don?t treat interns as manual labor or put unrealistic expectations on them. Unfortunately bad experiences makes the news (i.e., human beings can easily identify and tend to "complain" about things that did not meet their expectations, but they have more difficulties in identifying and expressing the underlying reasons of positive experiences).

What Should Interns know? On the other hands, students should understand that their (first) internship will be placing new and may be unusual demands and expectations on them. In many respect, internships are commitment to learning what life in the workforce is like. An internship is a time for personal growth, professional development and accountability. Student's approach and attitude toward their internship is critical to success. Student should have:

• Clear learning goals;
• True commitment to learning;
• A plan to document their experiences;
• A willingness to go out of their comfort zone (i.e., engage in new and unusual situation, activities, and "way of life").

In many ways, an internship is a first and temporary step in establishing a working relationship between and individual and an organization. Both the student and the internship provider should be well-prepared for planning, implementation and evaluation of internships. A signed internship agreement is only the first step.