2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Our work describes the best-practices and findings for a recent NSF IUSE HSI HRD grant. Its overarching goal is to drive an institutional change where the University proactively places students in internships with local industry partners. Students at the University are non-traditional, minority and low-income. They often working twenty to forty hours a week in non-curricular jobs. The Grant Program fully or partially subsidizes compensation for interns through financial aid scholarships. It aims to replace non-curricular work with relevant, real-world engineering experiences. This in turn improves their prospects to find jobs post-graduation.

Modern students work while going to school. A small amount of work—less than fifteen hours a week—is beneficial. However, beyond twenty hours a week has a negative impact. Hispanic/Latino(a) students work twenty to forty hours a week, more than any other demographic. This workload affects attendance, GPA, and utility, resulting in poor workforce placement. Academia must concede that work comes first for under-represented students. Universities must take steps to supplant irrelevant work experience with industry internships. Participants of this program received relevant internship/work experience, had better retention rates due to perceived utility of their degree. In the long term we expect timely to graduation due to participants taking internship units as credit toward their degree.

Students learned of the internships from faculty members soliciting applications to the program, supported by the grant. Executing the MOU between the University and industry partners took considerable effort and is a major barrier to executing formal partnerships between internship hosts. One MOU is still in negotiation since the start of the program. Despite some student participants reporting prior internship experiences, no one involved in the program would have found an internship this academic year without help from the Grant Program. Some students claimed to have submitted from twenty to fifty applications and the Grant Program was the only internship that called for an interview. Quality of internship varied from corporation to corporation. Universities must carefully monitor the feedback of participants to ensure that the individual goals of the participants are being met. Finding corporations that are willing to invest time in mentorship of students is a critical component to ensure student satisfaction. Even so, regardless of internship quality, participants would not have found internships if not for the Grant Program.

According to the participants, internships are an opportunity to network and build lasting professional connections. While students may be unable to turn every internship into a full-time position, each experience will give them something much more valuable and long-lasting: relationships with professionals and co-workers. The connections they make during their time at an organization can be stepping stones to their next opportunity.