Traditional Internships Are Changing Forever
My name is Mylene & I am the CEO & Co-founder of Lumaki Labs. I study Management Engineering at the University of Waterloo and I like sharing my experiences to help me reflect and spark new ideas. Currently, my company and I are on a mission to revolutionize the future of work through virtual internships.
It’s no surprise that with work, school, and many other aspects of life moving online, internships have been no exception.
This past summer, many employers opted to cancel, shorten, or turn their internship opportunities virtual. This meant that thousands of students didn’t get to experience the level of networking and hands-on engagement that in-person internships are well-known for, and thousands of other students lost out on the opportunity as a whole.
As someone who has experienced multiple internships or co-op opportunities before, these experiences are truly invaluable when you are an undergraduate trying to navigate career paths and the world of “adulting”. At the same time, these opportunities are highly beneficial to employers as they provide avenues for future talent as well as diverse perspectives that have the ability to unlock new ideas.
A New Way To View Experiential Learning
With how much technology has advanced and how fast the job markets are changing, it’s interesting to me how a lot of the current education system remains unchanged. For many years, internship and co-op opportunities have been around but they have grown to become increasingly in-demand as of recent years due to their link to the concept of experiential learning.
Experiential learning defined simply is learning by doing.
The thing is, not all students have the same level of access to these types of opportunities. This got my team and I thinking… How might we turn the impacts of COVID-19 on the experiential learning space into a means of greater access to opportunity?
You see, there are pros and cons to this new “virtual world” we’re living in. In the context of internships and co-ops, the downside is the decreased supply of opportunities from employers and the lack of engagement or communication for internships that are run virtually. The unique upside happens to be that since everything is virtual, students can now access opportunities outside the realm of physical barriers to entry. What I mean by this is that students no longer have to look just towards their backyard for opportunities, they can now apply to work with companies outside their hometowns and explore more of what is out there from the comfort of their homes. Again, this has a positive outlook for employers as well. This means that employers are able to reach more diverse talent pools and build talent pipelines that are future-proof.
Tying this back to experiential learning, now students can access opportunities that may not have been possible to before due to constraints such as expensive rent or long commutes. This generation of students is the most tech-savvy yet and this is an opportunity for them to demonstrate how they have been navigating uncertainty; a skill that is now becoming increasingly important.
Do Virtual Internships Provide Adequate Experience?
Although it can be said that nothing truly beats in-person experiences, my team and I believe that virtual internships can pave a new path for how we view real-world experience. We believe that technology can be a tool to help employers, schools, and students increase the positive impacts of experiential learning. Just because something is virtual, that does not mean that the quality of the experience should automatically be assumed to decrease. Yes, difficulties may arise when trying to deliver the same level of engagement and communication. However, with the right tools and a shift in how we look at virtualization, these experiences can be improved drastically. Technology is not meant to replace human interaction but rather, serve as a tool to help drive engagement and open up new avenues for connectivity. Virtual internships can provide adequate experience when socialization, connectivity and support are placed at the forefront early on.
Final Takeaways
After reading this article I hope you grasped a better understanding about how virtualization can be leveraged to open new doors for experiential learning. To summarize here are some key points:
- COVID-19 is enabling employers, schools, and students to think creatively and challenge the status quo when it comes to attaining real-world experience
- Normalizing the concept of virtual internships as another means of experiential learning opens more doors for students who may not have the same access to opportunities
- Virtual internships can be used to an employers advantage by providing new ways to build future-proof talent pipelines and tap into more diverse talent pools
- Technology is not a replacement for human interaction, but rather a tool that can be used to increase socialization, productivity, and quality of meaningful work
Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts about this post or would like to expand on this topic, feel free to reach out! 💡
