UVA Today

UVA’s Internship Placement Program

The Internship Placement Program has been serving students at UVA since 1977. This summer, the program offers 138 opportunities.

“We have software engineering, we have clinical research and we have roles that are in climate change and sustainability,” said Rebecca Coulter, the program director. She said some positions are in-person, others hybrid and still others remote.

Coulter said the placement program is different because a student can fill out a single application to be considered, rather than filling out individual forms for each internship. Students can find the application by signing into Handshake, an online database.

How It Works

“We are a placement program,” she explained. “What that means is that we match and place students on a one-on-one basis into internships.” 

Career Center staff get to know students through their applications and then interview every applicant. Matching students with employers is based on a variety of qualifications. Proficiency in a certain language may be required, as may certain technical skills.

“We have to base matching what the employer is looking for and what the student wants to get out of that experience,” Coulter said.

If a match is made, the next step for the student is an interview with the employer. The Career Center treats the second interview like a confirmation conversation.

“Generally, 95% of the time, once the students get to that point after that interview, they will move forward and the employer will also move forward and then the students sign our commitment form to participate in the program,” Coulter said.

In addition to the single application process, UVA’s Internship Placement Program is unique because it also has an academic component. In a one-credit class, students have the opportunity to reflect on their internship experience. The program is offered three times a year, in the fall, spring and summer.

For the summer phase, the internship is followed by a course the following fall. Full-time students are eligible to participate.

The deadline to apply for these summer internships is March 31.

More Opportunities

David Lapinski, the Career Center’s director of employer relations and experiential education, said the positions offered by the center are not “conversion internships,” when brief employment oftentimes results in a full-time job offer.

He said UVA has “hundreds and hundreds” of students participating in those types of internships with larger companies.

“You might think of Goldman Sachs, which has a very robust banking internship program, or Capital One, or consulting firms like Accenture or Bain,” he said.

Students apply for those types of internships throughout the fall and spring semester. “Then they go work those internships in the summer with the goal that that is going to convert to a full-time job,” he said.

UVA also facilitates “micro-internships,” short-term opportunities with businesses.

“The organization could say, ‘You know what? We just don’t have that managerial structure or the time to host a student for 14 weeks,” Lapinski explained.

But a company may have a hyper-focused project that could offer a good student experience, be it three weeks or 10 hours. And those could happen anytime during the school year and summer.

Another group of students self-source internships. “Typically, that’s going to be with nonprofits. It’s going to be museums,” Lapinski said. “It’s going to be with environmental organizations or government agencies … a lot of organizations that don’t tend to have the funding” to pay an intern.

For students working unpaid internships, the Parents Program and the Institute for Practical Ethics both offer scholarship funding – “basically stipends,” Lapinski said. 

Students can log into Handshake and fill out the application for scholarship opportunities. The deadline is April 7.

“There is a lot of demand for these types of scholarships,” Lapinski said. “I would say about 50% of applicants get one of the grants.”

Internships are an important part of a college education, he said.

“This is where students really learn about themselves. They learn about what they like and what they don’t like,” he said. “Each of these experiences helps a student better prepare and better understand what they want to do.”