What is an Internship?

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.