Virtual Internships Teach Life Skills You Can’t Learn in School
When COVID shut down the foundry10 office, we took our High School internship online. Youth adapted, created, persevered and far exceeded expectations.
By Hailey Williams and Kat Chen
Find part 2 here: https://medium.com/the-foundry10-voice/why-you-should-consider-hiring-a-virtual-intern-5850d9a64c6f
At foundry10, high school interns have the opportunity to design their own creative project and consult with a professional mentor to turn their vision into reality. During a typical program, interns would arrive at our contemporary, open office space in Seattle and collaborate with peers and supportive adults. Previous high school interns wrote published memoirs, designed video games, created art pieces, built robots and more, all in a vibrant, exciting atmosphere of learning and professional development.
But that’s not how the internship looked in 2020.
Social distancing protocols required the interns to start remotely, and to meet with their mentors and other team members online. Not only were the high school interns diving into some seriously ambitious projects — developing an app, creating a podcast and producing a short film, just to name a few — but they were also coping with the loss of normalcy and navigating the uncharted remote workplace during a terrifying global pandemic.
Like many other companies, foundry10 wasn’t sure that sustaining a virtual internship program would be worth it. A poll by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) in April found that around 22% of employers were planning to revoke their offers to interns due to the pandemic. Many other school districts had to cancel or find ways to adapt their internships for high schoolers after the virus changed life as we knew it.
We ultimately decided we were up to the challenge of reimagining project and work-based learning in the virtual space. Students can gain many skills from work-based learning experiences, including becoming more academically motivated, growing their personal and social competence in the workplace, and gaining more understanding about potential career paths.
It might look a little different on the surface, but we could still offer high schoolers a paid opportunity to gain professional work experience while pursuing a passion project with advice from a dedicated mentor. The result? More rewarding and spectacular than we could have ever predicted.
Adapting Creatively to the Virtual Workplace
When students apply for the internship, they submit a proposal of the project they would like to complete and the kind of support and materials they need to pull it off by the end of the internship. As the stay-at-home order went into effect, students hit major roadblocks to their original visions. A student who had planned an elaborate portrait photography project could no longer meet her subjects in person. A group of young game designers who looked forward to collaborating all summer long, would have to find a way to work together online.
Altering the scope of their projects and managing their expectations was both a hardship and a triumph for the interns. Though it was difficult for the interns to scale down their original plans, it taught them how to adapt to their circumstances and think about how to work more efficiently.
“When I came into this internship, I was obsessed with finding the right project and having a strict timeline [for] when to complete work,” one intern explained. “As I moved through my project though, I had to cope with the fact that the things I had planned were not going to work perfectly. I had to change my timeline, my project, an[d] adopt a more effective approach to completing the work I wanted to do.”
The remote nature of the internship also meant that communication with mentors, foundry10 staff, and others was slower than usual. With more wait time and less immediate access to resources, along with not being able to have hands-on support, many interns had to scale back their original plans for their project.
Many interns with group projects expressed frustration over not being able to work with their team members in-person. As one intern working on a group project said, “It’s a bit more difficult not being able to work on the project with everyone near me because instead of being able to have someone just look over and see what’s wrong, you have to try and explain it over a call.”
As one intern doing a group project said, “In the beginning [our goals] changed quite a bit because we had to narrow the scope of the project down to see what is attainable in the time frame.” Another intern said;
“I also learned a lot about adapting to challenges. I had a conversation with a mentor and realized that I had to completely change the focus of my project the day I had prepared all of my materials to start emailing people. That was difficult, but I kept a clear head in shifting my project’s focus and ended up with a more effective project in the end. I learned a lot that day about adaptability and navigating obstacles efficiently.”
Experiences with struggle are important for skill development and mastery. Although struggle can be frustrating, it’s actually good for our brains and can improve our learning potential. The interns’ struggle of managing their expectations and altering the scope of their projects helped them be more open to learning from others and encouraged them to be more flexible in their projects. This kind of flexibility through struggle can lead to better outcomes, both in learning and in life.
“Learning how to adapt to challenges was incredibly valuable…after spending much time doing this, by the end of the internship it was no problem to steer away from my expectations for what the product would be and instead create something better and more fitting in light of changes in my goals.” — Intern
Social Support and Mentorship from a Distance
Mentors and foundry10 staff were key social supports for the interns that helped them persevere through these challenges. As one intern said,
“Mentor support has been critical in molding my project into what it currently is. I expanded from the idea of a simple PDF document to a web-based multimedia publishing. This would not have been possible without the support of Foundry10 mentors who are experienced in website design, graphic design, and journalism.”
Research has shown that social support can have additional benefits for youth. For example, mentors and other adult supervisors can help students gain understanding about different occupations and determine which career path they want to pursue. One intern said that the internship helped her decide what she wants to study in the future. She said:
“Because of this internship, I’ve become interested in a major in cognitive science, neuroscience, or computer science (I was previously undecided) which is very exciting!”
Social support and experiential learning opportunities can also positively impact students’ well-being and future career. A 2014 survey from Gallup with more than 30,000 U.S graduates found that having an internship or job where they could apply their learning, being actively involved in extracurriculars, and working on extended projects doubled the odds of them feeling engaged at their current job. The study suggests that “feeling supported and having deep learning experiences means everything when it comes to long-term outcomes.”
“It was extremely valuable to work with a mentor that has expertise in the area I’m working in. For example, as I was building a website, I gained the perspective of a trained professional who has coded for years more than I have. This really helped me start off on the right path and navigate the abundance of resources online. Without my mentor, I wouldn’t know where to start.” — Intern
Perseverance through stumbling blocks was crucial for success in this internship. We saw many ways that the interns practiced persistence, including finding ways to stay motivated throughout the internship and holding onto moments that fueled their excitement.
“The program has given me the drive and resources to complete my project in a way I wouldn’t be able to achieve outside of this internship,” said one intern. Another intern who was working on a group project said, “Something positive I experienced was seeing how motivated my group was. It was really encouraging to see us super excited on zoom calls about new features that were implemented or new ideas that came up on the fly.”
The Promise of the Remote Internship
Even though we were uncertain about how valuable a remote internship would be for the interns, we’re glad we did it. The goal for the internship is usually to have at least a partial project that interns can share with foundry10 staff, other interns, family and friends in a special showcase. But this year the showcase wasn’t possible, so we decided to put less emphasis on sharing the final product and more emphasis on learning through the process.
“I’ve learned that it’s really important to take the initial step and start creating something, even if you think it may be difficult or scary to do so. Once you get started, it becomes much easier to keep going.” — Intern
Regardless of how much of their project they were able to complete, all the students learned a variety of valuable life and professional skills. “There are numerous hard skills that I learned through our mentor and a lot of technical skills that will be extremely helpful in the future,” one intern told us. “[I]n terms of soft skills, learning how to manage a group and work effectively in a group is something that I know will be very beneficial in the future.” Learning technical skills along with soft skills is important, since employers look for these skills because of their real market value.
The interns said that they hope to apply their newfound skills and knowledge to future educational and career opportunities.
“I am certain this internship will help me succeed in a future career,” one intern said. “Learning the material is one thing but being able to apply it and work on a project along with a team will be very beneficial when it comes to transitioning my skills into a professional work environment.”
In the final segment of this two part series, we will share some tips from the foundry10 High School Internship team on how to run a successful remote internship and why other organizations should consider facilitating their own virtual internship program.
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