The Covid – 19 Pandemic has made internships more difficult, but there are still many great ways to move forward in the process of finding the right internship for you. Indeed because more internships have a remote option, depending on where you live, you may have more great opportunities now.

I have seen some students have great online or virtual internship experiences. The key is to make sure that you are working with an internship program that will give you opportunities for genuine mentorship and development.

Before accepting any online internship, be sure to ask about the kind of mentorship and development they will provide. And make sure that you examine online reviews of the program. Some organizations exploit their interns (feel free to ask me if I know anything about a particular organization as well) while other organizations provide fabulous learning opportunities. You want to pick the latter kind of internship.

So… how to find such internships?

As always Carreers for Monarchs and other ODU-specific job boards can be helpful.

There are also national internship search engines like internships.com. As of mid May, more than 1000 different “remote” internships, may of them online, others involving travel were listed at https://www.internships.com/virtual . Many internships that were previously face to face are now also offering remote options.

Another good national website is idealist.com, particularly if you want an internship in the nonprofit sector. https://www.idealist.org/en/internships

Here are some other valuable sites you can use to find internships and other opportunities to build work experience.

Freelance work

Remote Internships and Work Experience

LinkedIn.com is always a ready reference as well!

And as always, if you have internship questions, feel free to reach out to me. I’m happy to meet with you to discuss your internship ideas and to help you identify organizations with which you might be a good match. Email me at jrichman@odu.edu.

You can do an internship for as few as zero credits (and still get a note on your transcript, or as many as six credits. I can also work with you on piecing together smaller project work into an internship.

Students who do internships earn tens of thousands more than those who don’t after graduation. Make sure you have a plan for internships as part of your education.

And it’s never too early (or too late) to get started thinking about internships.

Dr. Richman

Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies