College of Science

An internship is any employment opportunity in which the work experience of an individual has intentional learning objectives which parallel experiences in the interns perspective field of interest.

Hosting a student intern is a great way to provide extra support to your organization's current lists of projects while getting involved in the local community. Students who participate in internships during their college careers are more likely to succeed in regards to graduating and finding a job after graduating.

By creating a broader base for student internships within the STEM fields, CSU Monterey Bay is furthering its efforts in creating a campus engineered towards student success. Undergraduate internships have been identified as a High Impact Practice (HIP) by multiple studies conducted throughout the CSU system. These studies suggest that participation in at least two HIPs during an undergraduate’s career will substantially increase the likeliness of their success in their program with respect to increased retention rates and GPA. Once a student is engaged in an internship geared towards their desired profession, they become more determined to achieve success academically.

The Science Internship Program (SIP) at CSUMB is committed to giving our students as many opportunities as possible to expand their scientific knowledge outside of the classroom. Many partnerships and collaborations have already been formed through SIP, resulting in jobs for students and a strong recruitment base for the partners.

If a student is gaining credit for their internship with your organization, the student should work at least 12 weeks out of the 18 week regular semester (for fall and spring semesters), and 8 weeks out of the 10 week summer semester.

Other than that, there is NO LIMIT to how long or short an internship can last! We want our students to be as involved and gain as many valuable skills from their experience as possible, so multi-semester internships are encouraged. However, we also like our students to be well employed after they graduate, so please do not keep them at the intern level forever!

During the regular semester, full-time students can only work a maximum of 20 hours per week. A student may work up to 40 hours per week during summer holidays and breaks.

Student internships can be paid or unpaid. Though paid positions are preferable and will draw a larger pool of applicants, any opportunity where students will participate in valuable experiences are highly sought after as well. Keep in mind that any compensation that your organization can provide to students would be better than nothing (e.g. a gas card, or $500 stipend, ect...)

One of the main differences between a student intern and a service learner is the increased commitment associated with being an intern. Internships should be highly focused and more involved experiences where students work closely with site supervisors on specific projects and/or goals of the organization.

Yes! We have identified two distinct divisions of interns: academic and non-academic interns. Academic interns are interns that preform an internship alongside a class that requires the internship for course credit. These internships require a couple of risk management pieces between CSUMB and the site, i.e. a UAAPS, a site visit check form, and liability waiver from the student. These internships require a learning outcome agreement, which will be determined by the student and the site supervisor and approved by the faculty of the specific class.

Non-academic interns are students that are taking an internship completely because they are interested in the experience. These positions can be paid or voluntary, but they are completely separate from the University. The only role we (Sciences Internship program) would play in the actual internship, is the advertising of the position to students, thus, the interns are seen as an "employee" of whatever organization their internship is at, and would adhere to any risk management procedures that the organization has in place. These internships are not as stringent on specific learning outcomes, however we do encourage every site supervisor to relate specific projects back to their student interns academic studies.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has commented on labor issues regarding unpaid internships with this comment:

"WHD also recognizes an exception for individuals who volunteer their time, freely and without anticipation of compensation for religious, charitable, civic, or humanitarian purposes to non-profit organizations. Unpaid internships in the public sector and for non-profit charitable organizations, where the intern volunteers without expectation of compensation, are generally permissible. WHD is reviewing the need for additional guidance on internships in the public and non-profit sectors."