Three women sitting at a table, looking at a laptop in an office environment.

What is a Quality Internship? – CPD Suggested Guidelines

At Career and Professional Development, we strongly believe that internships provide invaluable opportunities for skill development and career discernment. Over 95% of incoming first-year students each year indicate that they intend to complete at least one internship as part of their LMU educational experience. An internship is a transformative educational experience in which students take on meaningful responsibilities within an organization and contribute to its.

While structures and functions vary between internship positions and between organizations, CPD and LMU promote a commitment from all parties to a student’s growth and development.

All internships – paid and unpaid, for-credit and not-for-credit – are expected to promote the following skills and abilities on the part of the student:

  1. Student will be able to articulate the purpose and definition of an internship as outlined by NACE (the National Association of Colleges and Employers).
  2. Student will be able to explain the difference between internships, part-time work and volunteerism.
  3. Student will be able to articulate at least one benefit of performing an internship.
  4. Student will be able to collect at least one professional contact through networking.
  5. Student will be able to recite LMU workplace sexual harassment and discrimination policies.
  6. Student will be able to apply classroom theory to workplace situations.
  7. Student will be able to document their internship experience via the online process.
  8. Student will be able to reflect on and evaluate their internship experience via evaluations.

According to the Department of Labor, the Courts have used the “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Courts have identified the following seven factors as part of the test:

  • The intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of
    compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee — and vice versa.
  • The internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
  • The internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
  • The internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
  • The internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
  • The intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
  • The intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship

Additional Resources