Internship program

Goal

Make sure no one graduates without real workplace experience.

A requirement built into the degree: students complete the Design Studio or an internship, a supervised placement with a host employer, 120 hours in a real business or studio, before they graduate. It was designed into the program from the ground up, not inherited as an existing course.

Audience

Students nearing the end of the program, and the employers who host them: animators, graphic designers, UX designers, photographers, filmmakers, video editors, motion designers, and social media marketers. The placement has to fit the discipline, so a photographer does not get parked in a marketing office and a UX student does not spend the placement retouching product shots.

Process

The program works closely with the campus Career Services team to line up placements with local businesses, campus partners, and the Design Studio, where a paid student can carry an internship at the same time. It then supports students throughout: regular check-ins, coaching on the work and on navigating a workplace, and help turning the experience into references and a portfolio piece.

Technology

• A Canvas course shell that carries the internship as a graded part of the degree.
• Placement agreements and a host-employer evaluation instrument.

Outcomes

Live and running now. Students leave the internship with a supervised placement, professional references, and at least one portfolio piece. Work made by students in the program has won Artists of Promise awards in the Maricopa district competition, two of them shown below.

The internship course also draws the program’s strongest formal evaluation: in the most recent official department review, students rated every item on the instrument at 5.0 out of 5, with an overall 10 out of 10 (a small cohort of three respondents). Those marks belong to the placements themselves. The host employers, drawn from the program’s industry-advisory partners, provide the real client work and mentorship students respond to. The faculty role is advising, matching each student to a placement that fits their discipline, and managing the agreements and evaluation behind it, not delivering the internship experience.