Internship Program Overview

Grinnell College’s internship program allows students to gain valuable applied experience, make connections in professional fields they are considering for career paths, and enable organizations to guide and evaluate talent.

We recommend internships be paid opportunities. However, students who secure unpaid or low-paid internships with non-profit organizations can apply for internship funding to offset some of the costs of food, transportation, housing, and other incidentals. NOTE: internship funding is limited, very competitive, and NOT guaranteed.

Below are the expectations when considering offering an internship opportunity:

  • Work Hours: Summer internships are required a minimum of 6 weeks with full-time hours (30+ hours/week). We ask this because we want our students to be guided by the organizational leadership that teaches the skills necessary to be successful in the workplace and after. Internships in the Fall/Spring can be virtual/remote with a maximum of 20 hours/week for a minimum of 12 weeks of the semester.

  • Meaningful Work Assignments: While every role has its share of mundane administrative tasks, we expect our interns to be engaged in meaningful work assignments with clear objectives commensurate with the intern’s skills and abilities.

  • Adequate Supervision: Seldom does an internship experience meet its full potential in the absence of good supervision. Thus, we expect each intern to understand who they report to throughout this experience. When an intern works within a team (and project work may require them to work with multiple individuals), we ask that internship sites clarify who, ultimately, the intern should turn to for guidance on setting priorities. Assigning multiple supervisors to a single intern should be avoided when possible.

  • Clear Expectations: We expect interns to be provided with a clear understanding of their role, the workplace culture, reporting lines, and general office policies and protocols.

  • Structured Feedback: We expect internship hosts to provide Grinnell student interns feedback regarding their performance. This feedback should be delivered through formal (performance appraisal) and informal (regular check-ins) methods. To help with this we do offer mid-term and final evaluation surveys for supervisors to use as talking points with their interns.

  • Timeline: Intern descriptions should be finalized and posted with the CLS as early as November 1 and no later than mid-March. This will ensure you have enough time to complete the selection process and, if necessary, provide the selected student sufficient time to apply for funding through the CLS as necessary.

  • Required Materials: To move forward, we need a detailed internship description, candidate qualifications (e.g., year in school, major, skills), required application materials (e.g., cover letter, resume, references), and an application deadline. The CLS can collect application materials on your behalf, or we can provide alternative instructions as requested.

If you are ready to post your internship opportunity and want to get started, use Handshake, our online job portal. For instructional see guides, go to “Create an Employer Account” and “Job Posting Instructions.”

Have questions or need assistance? Contact the Employer Engagement Team at 641-269-4895 or by email at recruit@grinnell.edu.