Internship supervisors must be willing and available to provide adequate training and regular on-site supervision of their SNC student intern, meeting with individual interns a minimum of 30 minutes on a biweekly basis.

Criteria for an Experience to be Defined as an Internship 

To ensure that an experience – whether it is a traditional internship or one conducted remotely or virtually – is educational, and thus eligible to be considered a legitimate internship by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) definition, the following criteria must be met: 

• The experience must be an extension of the classroom: a learning experience that provides for applying the knowledge gained in the classroom. It must not be simply to advance the operations of the employer or be the work that a regular employee would routinely perform.
• The skills or knowledge learned must be transferable to other employment settings.
• The experience has a defined beginning and end, and a job description with desired qualifications.
• There are clearly defined learning objectives/goals related to the professional goals of the student’s academic coursework.
• There is supervision by a professional with expertise and educational and/or professional background in the field of the experience.
• There is routine feedback by the experienced supervisor.  
• There are resources, equipment and facilities provided by the host employer that support learning objectives/goals. 

Internship Training Requirements

Review the following guidelines to determine whether your internship program is in compliance with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

• The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in a vocational school;
• The training is for the benefit of the trainees or students;
• The trainees or students do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees or students, and on occasion his operations may actually be impeded;
• The trainees or students are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
• The employer and the trainees or students understand that the trainees or students are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

Compensation

According to NACE, the average hourly wage of a bachelor's degree level intern for 2019 is $19.05/hour.

Generally, international students in F-1 visa status are eligible to work off-campus in internships under Curricular Practical Training (CPT), if the student and the internship meet certain eligibility requirements.

Students are eligible for CPT once they have completed one full academic year in a United States university and they have met any St. Norbert College policies for CPT authorization.

CPT can be authorized for one semester at a time and typically for a maximum of three total semesters.

As with hiring any intern, employers are not required to hire international students at the end of the internship and are not required to offer sponsorship for the H-1B non-immigration visa. International students, like all students, are looking for practical work experience in their field of study and can be a great candidates for many employers.

Offer Letter
Employers making an internship offer to an international student must prepare an offer letter on the company’s original letterhead. The letter must include the following:

• A statement that the position is an internship or CPT
• The beginning and ending dates of the position (to coincide with the academic semester)*
• The physical location (full address) where the student will be working
• Supervisor's name and title
• Exact number of hours to be worked each week
• Wages/hour
• Organization's EIN (necessary for students who must apply for an SSN)
• Internship/job description

Sample offer letter

* Students are given a hard copy of the offer letter with the available dates for the current semester.

Employers who need assistance or have questions regarding the offer letter should contact The Center for Global Engagement at cge@snc.edu or 920-403-3494, to speak to the Designated School Official (DSO).

Once the student receives the offer letter, it can take several days to complete the CPT processing and approval before students are able to register for the appropriate internship course. 

The student is not permitted to begin work at the internship until he or she has picked up the new CPT I–20, issued by the Center for Global Engagement.