The study was very interesting and provided both colleges and employers with factual information on what is important to students in their internship experience.
The results of the study included:
Of the 12084 respondents, 41.8% completed an internship.
There were 88% of the respondents who said they planned to take part in an internship as a part of their overall college experience.
There were 64.1% of respondents who said that they believed that taking part in an internship experience is a critical component to planning their career.
Summer internships (versus spring, winter, fall) were the most popular with 56.6% of students completing their internship during the summer.
Students rated gaining real work experience (74.5%), building a resume (65.7%), learning new skills (65.3%), making new connections (networking) (59.9%), as the top four reasons for pursuing an internship.
There were 70.4% of respondents who said they would return to the organization where they interned to do another internship, 64.2% said that they would return for full – time employment, and 80.2% said they would recommend the internship to their closest friend.
There were 35.4% of respondents who did their internship for credit and 58.6% of interns received monetary compensation for their internship.
There were 58.5% of respondents who said that internships are a mandatory component to receiving a degree at their institution.
Intern Bridge provided each participating college and university with a thorough breakdown of responses collected from their institution as well as the overall results of the study.
In Spring of 2008, Intern Bridge is offering a best practices webinar for employers to assist them in developing or improving their internship programs based on students’ responses to the survey. The Total Management Book is also available to assist manager based on the research conducted with over 5000 students and 240 organizations and will be included with the webinar.
