Structured College Internships in Geographic Education

Abstract An internship is academic credit awarded to students for supervised work obtained outside the standard classroom environment. The goal here is to present the format of a structured internship program and the tangible and intangible benefits to students, faculty, and the employing agencies. We define a structured internship as a university program that links classroom activities to the work outside the classroom. Classroom activities can include papers with internship objectives, resume and cover letter writing, journals of daily work tasks and oral presentations of work experiences. Students benefit from job-specific skills and career guidance as well as skills that are transferable to other jobs such as communication, office management, and problem solving. Faculty benefit through linkages to the non-academic work community. The employing agencies can complete small tasks, meet people who are possibly future employees, and better anticipate the skills of future employees.