Internships

Gain ‘real-world’ experience by interning with a design firm.

The Internship experience is a partnership benefiting both the employment firm and the student intern. An internship may serve as a trial job placement for both the intern and the firm with some internships leading to full-time employment.

See below policies and procedures.

Questions?

Contact Handshake with questions.

Benefits to the Student Intern

An internship provides students with a “real world” experiences in the design professions. Interns gain opportunities to work with practitioners, related specialists, clients, and observe/participate in the full design process, as well as a chance to network and build references. Internships help to synthesize what they are absorbing in their education by immediately applying it in the field (and watching others implement similar skills). This is the final piece-of-the-puzzle that validates their academic experience and serves as a segway towards their professional careers.

Student presenting studio project
Students presenting their work

Benefits to the Employment Firm

Students have many desirable skills to benefit a design firm –skills in computer software, construction documentation, preparation of sample boards, space planning, presentation material, social media, etc. A firm sponsoring an intern will benefit from these skill sets and gain support for day-to-day tasks.

Connecting Firms with Students

Firms Seeking to Sponsor an Intern:

Please post any job opportunities on the Handshake Platform and notify the Internship Advisor by email with a brief description of the job duties, location, and internship time period (summer, during semester, etc.) along with specific requirements, minimum skillset and the intern emphasis area of interior design or architectural studies. If you have a link to the Handshake job-posting, please share that with the Internship Advisor so that they can share it directly with our department’s students.

Students Seeking Internship:

Internship opportunities are typically sent to students on Canvas announcements and/or posted on the Handshake Platform. Students are encouraged to find their own internship opportunities through websites such as Indeed.com, Archinect, AIA, IIDA and ASID platforms, however if they need assistance, please contact the Internship Advisor by email for guidance and advice.

Internship Course

Internship Course ARCHST 4940:

Often students seek out the “Internship Course” as a methodology for extracting the most value from an internship opportunity. This course allows students to not only earn money and experience from an internship, but to also gain college credit.

After students secure an internship (either during the spring, summer or fall semester), they simply fill out an “Internship Contract” with details on the time-period, location and supervisor for their specific internship. The student and their supervisor will outline specific “learning objectives” to be gained by the student throughout the semester.

At the end of the course, the student will fill out an end-of-semester form reflecting on their experience and prepare a presentation summarizing what skills they learned from the employer’s environment.

Responsibilities for Student Interns:

  • Obtain Internship position and sponsor. Opportunities for internships are posted on Hire Mizzou Tigers and intermittently posted on Canvas. Also, you may find your own internship sponsor through websites like Indeed.com, Archinect, IIDA, ASID, AIA or simply by word-of-mouth connections.
  • Discuss internship responsibilities with your sponsor/mentor and develop goals and objectives. Include what is difficult to observe or practice in the classroom environment: observing a client interview, preparing for client presentation, discussing new products with sales representatives, observing construction or installation procedures, developing construction documents for a large project, etc.
  • Submit completed Employer Evaluation and work with your advisor to register for ArchSt 4940.
  • Keep daily or weekly record of activities. Write brief and specific statements of your work accomplishments and observations.
  • Complete a project with the firm’s business needs in mind. Examples of possible projects:
    • Presentation boards for client presentation of a project being done by the firm (may be done independently or when appropriate, may be helping prepare presentation boards for the firm).
    • Case history of a project in which the student was involved (do not use names of clients or firms). Include all parts of the design process ongoing during the internship, such as: initial contact, client interview, programming, measuring, preparing drawings of existing space, method of determining appropriate design solutions, cost estimating, client presentation, preparation of implementation documents, construction and/or design installation, review of finished project, post-occupancy evaluation.
    • Profile of firm to include: name, address, phone, and fax number, type of firm (partnership, incorporated, etc.), size, years in business, type of clientele/projects, routine procedure followed for design projects (i.e., point the interior design department becomes involved in a major project), etc. Include photographs of exterior of business, reception area, typical workstation, resource area, conference/ presentation area, etc. Label pictures and affix to 8 1/2 x 11″ pages with firm name on each page.
  • Submit record of activities and project to internship advisor by last week of semester.
  • Remind sponsor to send Employer Evaluation.

Wages for Interns

Students seek internships where they can earn wages. While wages are not a requirement for the intern partnership, hourly wages are preferred for internship experiences and should be agreed upon by the employer and the student as part of the internship contract. For further guidelines, see U.S. Dept of Labor Fact Sheet #71 Internship Programs Under the Fair Labor Standards Act.