ABSTRACT
During spring 2020, as employers responded to COVID-19, students had to postpone their plans for in-person internships or begin planning for remote internship assignments. This chapter is intended to help students think about how to prepare for the future. Like the traditional internship, virtual opportunities allow interns to explore career paths and build their networks. Interns and new hires fresh out of school are often the go-to tech support in the office. Transitioning the summer internship placements into virtual assignments was a tough job, but it was exciting to work in a new way. Completing an online internship gives interns direct experience and increases their skills in written communication and problem-solving, as well as virtual collaborative tools and platforms like Slack, Zoom, Facetime, Instant Messenger, and Microsoft Teams. The pivot to virtual internships meant that employers were able to honor their internship offers and interns were able to gain new skills to prepare for the future of digital work.
