High-School Internships

While in 11th grade, my oldest son found himself at the head of the 20th floor boardroom of a Los Angeles skyscraper, presenting to senior corporate executives from a major clothing brand and their management consulting firm… dressed in his pajamas!?

No joke. This might sound like a proper nightmare for most of us, but it was in fact a coup for him and the three other students on his team, also in their PJs. They had been invited to participate in a yearly business case competition against other school teams in the Los Angeles area. The challenge given was to propose a new product category for this influential athletic-leisure clothing brand. With the guidance of a teacher at their respective high schools, and mentorship from business majors at the local university, the teens set out to influence a market-leading retailer, as much as to win the competition. My son’s team brainstormed ideas, conducted a competitive market survey, interviewed actual consumers, estimated market size, and identified potential risks. They worked after school and in their own time over a 6-week period to meet the brief. They gathered all of their observations and recommendations in a thoughtful and professional-looking presentation, rehearsed their individual parts extensively, delivered their presentation in person, recommending that this clothing brand expand into the product category of sleepwear, and then answered questions on the fly from a room full of executives. By all accounts, this is not normal for a high-school student, but it should be.

The power of learning by doing

Whether through regional competitions, professional-level mentorship, apprenticeship or internship, students ought to begin engaging in real-world practica during their high-school years. Active, hands-on learning has been shown repeatedly to have strong benefits for knowledge retention, deeper cognitive engagement, and improved test scores. Especially when the experiences are a relevant extension of knowledge gleaned from more traditional learning contexts, students can ground and refine their understanding, and retain it better in a multi-sensory fashion. Internships and other forms of real-world work experiences, also give students exposure to business culture and sensibilities, reducing their initial shock when they eventually join the workforce. They give students the opportunity to test the waters of potential career paths with a low-risk, short-term commitment.?

Engaging with adult professionals or experts in their respective fields can have a number of influential benefits for students, regardless of whether that becomes their eventual field of study or career pursuit:

• Critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Sense of responsibility
• Increased confidence
• Time management skills
• Professional communication
• Networking
• Emotional regulation and resilience

How to define an “internship”??

Internships are probably best defined, unfortunately, by their lack of consistent definition, guidelines and monitoring. That said, I share the following list from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) to define what criteria an internship should ideally meet:

1. The experience must be an extension of the classroom: a learning experience that provides for applying the knowledge gained in the classroom. It must not be simply to advance the operations of the employer or be the work that a regular employee would routinely perform.
2. The skills or knowledge learned must be transferable to other employment settings.
3. The experience has a defined beginning and end, and a job description with desired qualifications.
4. There are clearly defined learning objectives/goals related to the professional goals of the student’s academic coursework.
5. There is supervision by a professional with expertise and educational and/or professional background in the field of the experience.
6. There is routine feedback by the experienced supervisor.
7. There are resources, equipment, and facilities provided by the host employer that support learning objectives/goals.?

In many cases, internships are performed on employers’ premises. As with employment in our post-COVID world, more internships are also now available on a fully remote basis. The challenge with remote student internships is that they do not impart the same level of employer culture and camaraderie as would in-person internships. As well, being out of sight and out of mind, it becomes more incumbent upon the student intern to request their supervisor’s time and input, which isn’t always comfortable nor obvious for those new to the work world. Another option that is becoming more common is called a ‘micro-internship’, which is typically run in the classroom, where groups of students working together solve a problem for a local business. The benefit of the micro-internship is that teachers and other school staff can stay more closely engaged with their students and the internship project work, acting as facilitator between students and employers to ensure the best possible academic outcomes.

Students want internships…

While getting themselves prepared to go to college was for many years one of the top 5 concerns of high-school students, being ‘college-ready’ now ranks as 47th in a list of 57 considerations! Today’s students feel that practical skills, critical thinking, development of character, and career-readiness are more important to them than being ‘college-ready’. Moreover, almost all high-school and college-age students (94%!) “believe it’s important to have an internship or apprenticeship program before a full-time job. More than twice as many college students report completing internships now compared to those in the mid-1990s.?

…but too few internships exist

A 2023 Gallup survey of college students found that the greatest barrier to students performing internships is the difficulty they experience in obtaining internships. The demand for internships is far higher than their supply. One study found that, of the students who had not yet completed any internships, more than 70% of them voiced that they did in fact want an internship but had been unsuccessful in their search for one. In 2023, for instance, employers offered 3.6 million internships to college students and recent college graduates across the US. Only 2.5 million of those same internships were rated to be of ‘high quality’, meaning that they offered legitimate skills development. Meanwhile 8.2 million students had actually wanted internships, which means that 5.7 million students who wanted quality internships missed out. It is estimated that nearly one third of students who want internships cannot secure them due to such a limited supply.

While it is much less common for students in high school to perform internships, this trend is certain to shift. Particularly as AI becomes more commonplace, it will become essential for students to demonstrate their human competencies and ability to extend their knowledge and to problem solve in novel contexts. As well, completing an internship in high school allows students to represent their work experience as an extracurricular achievement on their fledgling resumes, which can help them to stand out on their college applications.

Employers think well of internships

The positive sentiment around internships is equally shared by employers. “90% of employers agreed that high-school internship programs can help students get into better colleges,” and

“89% also believe that they will have a competitive advantage when looking for a job.” Though internships are generally offered in greatest numbers by employers who have a need for early-career talent, in one US business survey, “86% of those with high-school interns said their program aimed to strengthen their industry pipeline as a whole.”

Imagine a high-school student who is strong at math and potentially interested in careers related to finance. Once they’ve completed Calculus A/B, B/C or perhaps even AP Statistics, he or she certainly has the requisite mathematical ability to assist in financial or data analyses, given the proper instructions and mentorship. Or consider a young graphic designer with budding skills in any one of the leading visual design programs; they could most certainly develop concept art for all types of marketing and social media assets. Aided by AI prompting, even newbies can participate in these activities. Some students may even be capable of mocking up production-ready artwork. And without a doubt, our young talent who have been playing video games daily for 10+ years of their lives and have either a strategic mindset or technical skills could very well intern as game designers or programmers respectively. Securing formal credits for one’s participation on a games team can open doors when students are ready to look for full time work in the field. In each of these instances, students can gain priming skills and experiences that will aid them in securing a better career trajectory, whether through college or directly into work.?

What employers want most

In a 2016 NACE study, employers hiring for internships reported most wanting students with good analytical and problem-solving skills first, and with project management and communication skills as next most important. This would confirm the belief held by a growing number of educators that mastering the 4Cs of: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity are at least as important if not more so for the 21st Century as are mastering the traditional 3Rs.

Not just any internship

To avoid any misconceptions, let’s clarify that simply completing an internship is not a magic bullet. The nature and quality level of the internship, how a student performs within it, and how they are able to relevantly relate their competencies gained from it matter far more. In a list of priorities that employers mention as most important to them in considering recent graduates for full-time hire, simply having completed a prior internship ranks #8 from a list of 11 criteria. The seven more important criteria mentioned are:

1. Worked in a role that requires people skills
2. Can articulate impact made during work experiences
3. Completed relevant tasks or projects
4. Worked in role that requires professionalism/autonomy
5. Worked in a role that requires relevant knowledge, skills and abilities
6. Worked in employer’s industry/field
7. Completed an end-to-end project

The report goes on to specify that, “employers are looking for evidence that recent graduates’ past work experiences… have helped them to develop and demonstrate different competencies.” As such, high-quality internships which provide clear learning outcomes, regular feedback from a supervisor, and the development of relevant skills can be hugely beneficial in that they develop many of the competencies above, which employers most value. Isn’t it interesting that ‘people skills’ remain the number one criteria that employers seek, despite the work world becoming more defined by the expansion and potentiality of AI?

Better job prospects

The wealth of data available points to the fact that high quality internships improve one's outlook on securing a job, holding a job, progressing into leadership, increasing pay, and staying employed:

• (NACE) indicates that paid interns are about twice as likely to land a job after graduation compared to non-interns, with 57.6% of interns converting to full-time employees in 2022.

• The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that 89% of employers surveyed believe that students who complete high-school internships will have a competitive advantage when looking for college internships or full-time jobs.

• Students who’ve interned are 12.6% more likely to receive an invitation to interview for a full time role versus comparable candidates who have not interned. Even more impressive, “graduates within the field of humanities and social sciences with an internship experience receive 26.3% more interview requests than their otherwise identical peers without internship experience.” This would seem to align with employer preference for graduates with good people skills.

• College graduates with at least one internship experience have a nearly 14% better chance of securing a job offer.

• Students who have participated in 2 or more internships were twice as likely to find employment within 6 months of graduation compared to students who had not interned.

• One year after graduation, students who had interned are working in better jobs that earn more money.

• Ten years after graduation, students who had interned experience lower unemployment.?

Discovering their talents and passions

Despite all of the data on how successful internships can be in terms of employment outcomes, the most important benefit in participating in internships are that of personal discovery, and students finding their talents and passions, or simply becoming better informed about what’s going to be a good fit for them. Just over 81% of interns in one large study responded that these experiences helped them shift focus around their majors and classes, or adjusted their career plans altogether. These students found greater satisfaction in their revised direction. Sometimes it’s easier and even more important to find out what you don’t want to do. It points you in fresh directions - opens up your perspective.

Also, they rated “the real-world application and hands-on experience obtained from the internship to be the most important impact.” It’s interesting to note that the majority of respondents in one smaller study - 86% - made career transitions within two years of their initial job acceptances. This data suggests that they saw this foot-in-the-door opportunity facilitated by their prior internship, as a stepping stone along their career journey, not as an end point.?

Coming back stronger students

When work experiences are deliberately and conscientiously integrated into the classroom curriculum, amazing benefits can occur, including positive effects on students’ educational, attitudinal and employment outcomes. For certain subjects, the brain appears to encode experiences of active participation more richly than in those of passive observation.?

One study found that certain science concepts, if experienced hands-on, led to better learning outcomes. Of those personally experiencing the same science concept in physical form versus those who only observed the concept by watching others participating physically… “when studied under FMRI imaging, a significantly larger area of brain cells activated for those in the ‘action’ group. Overall, the action group earned quiz grades that were about 7 percent higher than the observation group, even though they had fairly matched grades on other quizzes during the quarter.” Their memory and understanding of the concept was stronger because they were hands-on, minds-on during their learning experience.?

While these effects were seen in college students, high-school students experience similar benefits from real-world, hands-on experiences. It has been shown that students who completed internships in high school showed improvements in completing more academic courses, earning higher grades, showing better attendance and an increased likelihood of enrolling in post-secondary education. While additional research and larger, peer-reviewed studies are needed around internships, their impact is unmistakably positive when internships are thoughtfully conceived and delivered.?

How CTE can help

I am not suggesting that the existing school systems attempt to take on yet another area of expertise and yet additional expenses beyond what they already manage to do. Most local municipalities and state governments do not have the wherewithal to support such an expansion. Fortunately, the federal government already has funds in place to do exactly that. Career and Technical Education (or CTE) programs can already tap Perkins V funds at the federal level for:

1. Developing and coordinating internship programs
2. Supporting necessary travel expenses for CTE activities
3. Providing materials and resources for work-based learning initiatives

In most of the schools in which I’ve engaged directly with teachers, their perspective is too often, “I have my college-bound kids and my CTE kids.” This is a limiting belief. Sure, students who are not likely to go to college need every hand up the ladder that they can manage, but don’t we rob students of these unique and powerful real-world opportunities when we don’t consider every student a ‘CTE kid’?

Companies overwhelmingly report that they prefer to partner with educational institutions to support their internship programs at the collegiate level. Such a partnership strengthens the academic fit and learning outcomes achieved. If we were to expand our thinking around who could benefit from expanding internships down to the high-school level, then CTE Coordinators would be a natural first consideration to be internship liaisons for their students.?

Missed opportunities

By most estimates, only 62% of high-school students in the US attend college. This means that nearly 40% of all students will never have the opportunity to experience a collegiate internship. Meanwhile, their need for relevant workplace-based experience to help them land a good job is all the more important in competing with their college-bound peers. More broadly, in a world where educators are preparing students for jobs that largely don’t yet exist, why wouldn’t you bring the students closer to the professional world and the professional world closer to the students??

I have not proposed in this article the road map to implement wide-scale internship programs for high-school students. Rather, I simply argue for the benefits of such an approach, and to embracing a variety of real-world opportunities, from professional mentorship, apprenticeships, business and design competitions, and internships as critical to helping young people to begin to identify and trial their career interests earlier, and to do so in a manner supported and encouraged by their educational institutions, their high schools. As we reimagine school for the AI era, these real-world experiences can offer high-school students tremendous opportunities: putting students’ existing skills to the test, engaging adults in a professional manner, learning new skills beyond those which schools are currently set up to provide, learning how to take feedback and to be resilient, and growing in their own responsibility.

The other side of this coin is what society may be missing in their keeping students from engaging with workers who are actively solving important problems. I recently mentored a Kindergartener in math who could do complex addition and subtraction word problems in his head. He is already operating at a 4th grade level. When he’s in high school, he’ll be ready to apply his amazing mathematical talent to do amazing things beyond the school walls. If he’s allowed to. Even those performing just at grade level could still contribute meaningfully and gain tremendously when we make internships a core part of high-school pedagogy and the career exploration journey. And our world would be better for it.