Internship Match Program: Experiential Course

ROLE: Teacher and Course Designer

Overview

I had the opportunity to have a summer research internship at the Chicago Botanic Gardens while I was in high school. This experience exposed me to my interests in the STEM space and allowed me to develop professionally before entering college. I wanted to bring a similar program to other high schools.

rEDesign is a student organization focused on education reform, where I pitched this internship program idea. We developed a team around the project, and proposed the program to Community High School in Ann Arbor, as a pilot. The faculty and staff at Community were so excited by the idea that they asked us to turn it into a full-blown course.

In three months, my team and I developed a syllabus and curriculum for a 4-credit, semester-long Internship Match Program course. For the first half of the semester, students would participate in a professional development course, and in the second half, they would be matched to an unpaid 2-month internship in the Ann Arbor area for course credit. 

I taught 25 junior and senior high school students every week, and my team and I successfully matched all of them to internships that aligned with their interests. Due to the program's success, we are continuing the course again this year and refining the curriculum, with hopes to expand to other schools in the future.