May 18, 2020

Excerpt from "Students' Internships are Disappearing. Can Virtual Models Replace Them?"

This excerpt is from “Students’ Internships are Disappearing. Can Virtual Models Replace them?” It is the May 13 edition of The Edge, a weekly newsletter by Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”

Internships are going virtual, but apparently not enough of them.

It’s hard to get a good read on how many college students have had their spring and summer internships disappear on them amid the Covid-19 pandemic. I’ve seen estimates all over the map, and even when companies say they haven’t outright canceled their internships, they are often scaling back on the number of students they’re taking.

What fascinates me are the responses to those lost opportunities.

Employers themselves and new facilitators are stepping up to create alternative virtual internships, in some cases working closely with colleges to ensure academic credit. That much is not a surprise to me. Since I began exploring the advantages of virtual micro-internships pre-pandemic, I’ve seen a proliferation of companies that coordinate with colleges to develop work-based projects designed to be integrated into, or complement, coursework. Several of these companies, like Riipen, CapSource, and Parker Dewey, are well positioned to shift to serving students, and that’s what they’re doing now.

Even more interesting to me is the creativity and simplicity behind a free, student-run effort developed by undergraduates at Brown University called Intern From Home. Basically it’s a digital platform where companies (mostly start-ups) post internship opportunities, and students submit simple applications, listing their qualifications via Google Docs.

The platform is the brainchild of Chuck Isgar, Megan Kasselberg, and David Lu, who created the site in a matter of hours as they were leaving campus midsemester and hearing about their friends’ losing spring internships. It’s not slick, but through word of mouth, the site has drawn postings from more than 100 companies, attracted signups from more than 1,200 students, and resulted in more than 150 placements.

The founders are serious about using the site to create opportunities for students, and they vet listings with employers before posting them. “We want them to have a really clear plan for the interns,” Isgar told me. “We’re not a gig-economy platform.”

While this began as a project for Brown students this spring, it has morphed into a broader platform for summer and fall internships, and the site has drawn students from nearly 200 other colleges, and Isgar hopes more students sign up, he said. “We want to share these opportunities.”

The spirit behind the idea is admirable, and it may also lead to new opportunities. As companies have looked through students’ applications, some have decided to offer more internships than originally planned.

How many employers recognize the value of virtual internships? Some do, sure. This week I spoke with Tan Moorthy, executive vice president of Infosys and its global head of education, about its decision to convert more than 200 face-to-face internships into virtual ones. Instead of hosting interns in India, Infosys created a digital platform that it will use for regular communication. It also developed new assessments for evaluating interns’ work and new guidelines for mentors to offer consistent feedback.

Even after the pandemic, when in-person internships become possible again, Moorthy said he expects the company will keep elements of this virtual experience to help prepare students for the work force. “Working virtually is going to be more of the norm than the exception,” he said, so virtual work skills will be useful. Other companies may not have Infosys’s resources, but that’s a lesson they might want to remember.

From my conversations with internship companies, as well career-services folks at colleges, it seems there are still plenty of students who’d happily embrace a virtual internship this summer, if only they knew where to find one — and more companies were prepared to offer them. The University Innovation Alliance, for example, has received a small grant to help pay students’ internship wages, with pledges of more funding to come. But it hasn’t found employers willing to match the offers.

As for Isgar, a rising senior, it turns out he may sign up for Intern From Home himself. This summer he was planning to be in Los Angeles interning with a private-equity firm. Last week he learned that position was canceled.