Student Experiences in Pre-COVID Virtual Internships: Integration, Barriers, Motivation Challenges, Supportive Supervisors, and Intern Growth

ABSTRACT

This study explores the experiences of undergraduate students participating in virtual internships prior to the onset of COVID-19. We used a phenomenological approach to understand the experiences of ten undergraduate students engaged in virtual internships. Six themes emerged: initial concern about virtual work, the salience of the intern-supervisor relationship, lack of exposure to office dynamics, motivation and time management concerns, perceived benefit of developing work-life balance, and perception of growth/development during the internship. Our findings indicate that higher education institutions and employers should design virtual internship programs that deliberately select and train supervisors, integrate virtual interns into the workplace, and support students in managing challenges with self-motivation and time management; and that virtual internships can greatly benefit students.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the two colleagues (unnamed for privacy reasons) who provided us with critique of our emerging coding schema. We also wish to acknowledge the numerous colleagues who provided us with feedback at various stages in the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).