At Thomas Jefferson University, students interested in earning academic credit must register their internships by the beginning of each semester. Therefore, we ask that employers kindly provide written offers to students by the dates below for each semester in order to ensure the paperwork is submitted on time. Your intern is responsible for registering your internship with our Career Services Office (Kanbar - Suite 313):

Summer 2024: May 13, 2024

Fall 2024: August 19, 2024

Spring 2025: January 8, 2025

The Career Services Centers' Internship Program at Jefferson East Falls:

• Assists students in their internship search by helping them explore and apply to internship opportunities, while offering professional development programming to prepare them for their internship.
• Supports students with an interest in earning academic credit to secure a professional experience in their field of study, while acting as the intermediary between the students' internship site and faculty internship advisor.
• Works with each student as an individual to seek out the best possible internship experience.

At Jefferson East Falls, students may complete internships without receiving academic credit, or pursue a credit-bearing internship. We encourage all students who are pursuing or completing internships to work with the Career Services Center so we can best support their internship needs and professional development. Likewise, we hope that all employers will partner with the Career Services Center to identify ways to best market their internship opportunities and discover future talent.

Internships are intended to be a professional learning experience, with each position offering a student the opportunity to apply learned classroom skills and to develop as a professional in the field. Students interning with your organization develop and/or sharpen key professional skills necessary to be considered a viable full-time professional in their particular field or industry, while giving you 3-4 months to test-drive a potential full-time hire.

Jefferson East Falls is committed to the NACE principles and is currently following the NACE criteria for defining an internship.

Standards for an Experience to Be Defined as an Internship:
To ensure that an experience—whether it is a traditional internship or one conducted remotely or virtually—is educational, and thus eligible to be considered a legitimate internship by the NACE definition, all the following criteria must be met:

• 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.
• The skills or knowledge learned must be transferable to other employment settings.
• The experience has a defined beginning and end, and a job description with desired qualifications.
• There are clearly defined learning objectives/goals related to the professional goals of the student’s academic coursework.
• There is supervision by a professional with expertise and educational and/or professional background in the field of the experience.
• There is routine feedback by the experienced supervisor.
• There are resources, equipment, and facilities provided by the host employer that support learning objectives/goals.

If these criteria are followed, it is the opinion of NACE that the experience can be considered a legitimate internship.