The American Association of People with Disabilities has begun its very first virtual summer internship program, combining interns from both 2020 and 2021 who will participate in internship placements, Certificate Programs, mentorship, professional development, and other community activities online. Two interns of note: Dr. Karen Arcos, alumna and volunteer at the Blind Children’s Center who works with children and parents using her bilingual skills, who is interning with the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and Bruno Matthew Arnold who, though still an undergraduate, is heavily involved in disability advocacy, academic research, and walkathons for Southeastern Guide Dogs. He’ll be interning in the office of Virginia Senator Mark Warner. Read more about the program and the interns here.
Fifty companies that put on “awesome” virtual internships in 2020 were lauded in an article on ripplematch.com. Familiar names like AT&T, Bristol Myers Squibb, Kohl’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods made the list of companies involving virtual interns in Shark Tank-like competitions. Examples included creating an online portal for small business loans, and a hackathon dedicated to making the internet more accessible for the visually impaired. Keep this list of 50 companies handy for future internship ideas.
Will virtual career experiences continue beyond COVID-19? John Yarham, a British expert, certainly envisions a place for virtual career training in the future, and cites a national virtual work experience program called “My Week of Work”, which 120,000 young people and parents joined in 2020.
Many resources make it easy to explore careers online. CareerOneStop.org has its videos grouped into 16 different “clusters”, with a huge choice of careers to explore. Each career video also has a transcript, training required, average pay, and outlook for this career choice. In Khan Academy’s Careers Series, 14 modules feature professionals describing their career in realistic terms, including pay scale, training, entry level experiences and the career ladder.
