An internship is a career-related learning experience that provides an excellent opportunity for students to gain “real world” experience and to explore a variety of career fields. The academic internship program at Purchase College is designed to give students practical experience in their area of academic study or in other fields of interest.
Time commitments for on-site experience typically range between 3 and 10 hours per week during the course of the semester.
Academic internships may be paid or unpaid in accordance with the US Department of Labor’s six criteria. The Career Development Center strongly encourages for-profit internship sites to offer students compensation whenever possible in the form of pay, stipend, travel reimbursement, or housing expenses for a summer program. Please refer to the NACE Position Statement on Compensation for Internships for additional details. Credit-bearing internships are supervised both within the work setting and by a Purchase College faculty member who is knowledgeable in a discipline related to the internship.
Internship Registration
The extended deadline to register for fall 2021 academic internships was September 10th. Students may appeal for late internship registration by completing an Appeal Form. Appeal requests will be reviewed and the student will be notified of the decision. For a 1 or 2 credit internship, please see below about registering for a Short Course internship
Short Course
Students can register for an Academic Internship in the fall and the spring semesters as a “Short Course.” These are 1 or 2 credit internships (38 - 75 hrs. total) that, for the fall semester, will begin mid-October. Fall 2021 Short Course registration will begin September 27th and close for internship Learning Contract submission on October 18th.
Student Guidelines
View resources and guidelines for completing an internship for academic credit. To learn how to complete an on-line Learning Contract to register your internship for credit, please view our guide.
A great way to begin your internship search is to meet with a Career Counselor to discuss the type of experience you are seeking and to help you prepare to apply. Start your search with some of these helpful internship resources:
Purchase JobScore - Purchase College’s online job and internship search system WayUp - A free platform for early-career professionals to explore job and internship opportunities Handshake - Job and internship opportunities for college students. Open to students from all colleges. Idealist - Internships and jobs with not-for-profit organizations in a variety of job functions and issue areas. Chegg Internships - Search for internships nationally and review career and search tips. Resources by Major/Industry - Browse our major’s pages to find industry specific job and internist search resources.
On-Campus Internships
Purchase College offers a variety of credit-bearing internship opportunities right here on campus.
