Overview
Mary at Old Dominion Research Foundation had a program concept and a sponsor who was willing to provide the funding. She needed to move fast to take advantage of the opportunity. We were currently assisting them with other projects and had become their technical “go to guy”. They needed to quickly develop a system to serve as an interface between industry in Virginia looking for interns and students looking for hand-on opportunities. In just a few months together we stood up a website, implemented an on-line application, developed an industry portal, and successfully kicked off the program. In its first year over 1,500 students applied to the program and over 100 companies offered almost 200 internships.
About the Virginia Commonwealth STEM Industry Internship Program
With an increasing demand for skilled STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) workers in Virginia, the development of efficient pathways between undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees and industry has become an urgent need. With support from the Commonwealth of Virginia, Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) in partnership with Virginia’s Regional Technology Councils, and in collaboration with Virginia companies, Virginia colleges, and community colleges, has created the Commonwealth STEM Industry Internship Program (CSIIP). CSIIP links undergraduate STEM students to paid summer internship positions with companies throughout Virginia.
CSIIP offers a one-stop, centralized, online internship application system that provides Virginia’s undergraduate STEM majors the ability to search and apply for STEM-related (summer/fall/spring) paid internship opportunities with participating Virginia-based companies that can search our database of prescreened student applications for specific skills, experience, educational background, interests and desired work locations to find the best possible candidates for their paid summer internships. Companies select students, make offers, and employ interns directly.