What Should Undergraduate Internships Do?

Extract

Internships are “ in.” During an era of lagging liberal arts enrollments, deans. Admission Office personnel, students, and their families, are demanding education they believe will help the undergraduate get a job on graduation. For the instructor however, usually trained in conventional academic roles, the off-campus internship program is a rather new challenge. Rather than mastering a definable body of knowledge, the student is expected to master an “experience.” Rather than controlling student workload and specific tasks, the instructor only sets general parameters, which he must depend on others to follow. Rather than containing student personalities, styles and demeanors on campus, the instructor must send them off-campus to reflect well (or ill) on the college, their program and themselves.