Meaningful internships as a way to connect the third sector and academia?

• In Event: Third Sector Teaching and Learning Strategies

Abstract

This reflection paper builds on the experience of a new Bachelor in Politics and Governance program at the American University of Armenia. The program aims to graduate a new generation of conscientious citizens and community leaders. It aspires to equip students with strong analytical and decision-making skills and instil personal integrity and service ethics through various activities, including mandatory internships. This paper will critically reflect on the early internship experience of our students and partners at placement organisations through interviews with relevant stakeholders and analysis of internship design, requirements and outputs.
Internships are supposed to serve as meaningful experiences that connect our students to the third sector in Armenia and open up the university for a more fruitful engagement with the third sector. Thoughtful design, monitoring and early evaluation of the internship is a high priority for the program at this stage. This reflection paper aims to explore the early implementation stage of the internship, to share our experience and to solicit feedback that could help us improve the internship design further. It also aspires to contribute to the broader conversation about the link between academia and the civil society. Is the internship a meaningful and respectful experience where the two parties learn from and enrich each other? What factors enhance or undermine the capacity-building of the intern, the hosting institution and the supervising faculty? How to do it better? These are the guiding questions for the reflection paper.

References

Leonard, Pauline, Susan Halford, and Katie Bruce. "‘The new degree?’Constructing internships in the third sector." Sociology 50, no. 2 (2016): 383-399.

Caddell, Martha, and Rosemarie McIlwhan. "Making Student Internships Work: Navigating Stakeholder Interests and Aspirations at the University-Work Interface." Employability via Higher Education: Sustainability as Scholarship (2019): 291-303.

Author

• Yevgenya Jenny Paturyan, American University of Armenia