Background: Internships for college students can enhance their grades, skills, and employment prospects, but finding and completing an internship sometimes requires considerable resources. Consequently, before postsecondary institutions consider mandating this high-impact practice, more evidence is needed regarding the various obstacles students…

Internships are widely promoted extra-curricular experiences that can have positive impacts on student outcomes, yet how specific elements of internships contribute to these outcomes and facilitate learning is understudied. In this sequential mixed-methods study, we use sociocultural learning theory to interpret data from surveys (n = 435) and…

Internships are a widely touted co-curricular activity that may enhance students' employability, their future wages, and employer talent needs. However, how students themselves understand and conceptualize the internship experience is poorly understood. Reasons why understanding students' perceptions of internships is important include the fact…

Internships are widely perceived as a "high-impact practice" that opens the doors of opportunity for college students, yet little is known about obstacles to participation. Instead, educators and employers too often view participation as unproblematic, with many postsecondary institutions beginning to mandate internships for graduation…