What is an Internship?

The term intern is often misused in describing positions that the federal government actually deems employer/employee or work-for-hire situations. Internships are meant to be an extension of the student educational experience, so they must be structured much like an academic situation as opposed to focused on the employer’s operations. Additionally, the intern—not the business or organization—must be the primary beneficiary of the internship activity. The federal government sees most internships in the for-profit private sector as employment, which means interns must be paid at least the minimum wage.

Compensation

If an internship position is unpaid, the intern’s role must be largely observational and training-oriented, for which the internship mentor or host company derives no substantive material benefit from the efforts of the intern, who is the "primary beneficiary". Courts use the following “primary beneficiary test” to determine whether an intern or student is, in fact, an employee:

The extent to which....

1. ....the intern and the employer understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
2. .....the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands-on training provided by educational institutions.
3. .....the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
4. ....the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
5. .... the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
6. ..... the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
7. .....the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

Academic Credit

Not all students may choose to receive academic credit for internships or employment positions. Positions that earn students academic credit can be either paid or unpaid but must meet the following requirement regarding mentoring and one of the following criteria regarding compensation:

mentoring

• The student must be supervised and mentored by an experienced professional/artisan in the same field of practice as the internship. For example: in a photography internship, the student must be mentored by an experienced photographer or creative director, whereas a graphic design internship requires mentoring by a seasoned professional designer or visual communications specialist. Accordingly, a photography or design intern could not be mentored by a professional in a different field such as marketing, management or retail.

compensation:

• Student works for a for-profit company are paid for their efforts, in which case those students may participate in and contribute to the work of the company.

• Student works in a volunteer capacity for a public sector or a non-profit organization and are not paid for their efforts, in which case those students may participate in and contribute to the work of the company. 

• Students work for a for-profit company and are not paid, but whose internship role is largely observational and training-oriented, for which the internship mentor or host company derives no substantive material benefit from the efforts of the intern, and which are consistent with the guidelines established by the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division including all the criteria listed below.

Submit a job or internship listing

To submit a job or internship to be shared with students in the School of Art, fill out this webform.
Submissions that do not follow the above guidelines will not be posted.