ASPIRE: Arts and Sciences Program for Internship-Related Experiences
The mission of ASPIRE is to enhance, facilitate, and promote internships throughout the College of Arts & Sciences. ASPIRE partners with agencies, communities, and organizations in locally, nationally, and worldwide to match students in educationally enriching internships.
ASPIRE is based on a philosophy that internships are central to the intellectual experience in the College of Arts & Sciences, where students are encouraged to apply what they learn in the classroom to the workplace, and in service to their community. With that broader philosophy in mind, ASPIRE is designed to enhance student understanding of the complexities of the modern world through internships.
ASPIRE internships are intended to inspire students to realize the academic benefits of practical work experience. Their cooperative design fosters an environment where students are able to experience what it is like to work on academically relevant real world projects. Equally important, students receive guidance, performance evaluations, and feedback from both internship supervisors and faculty supervisors. Identified based on the career interests of the student, the internship host organization is a setting conducive to applied work in the student’s academic discipline. In such settings, students gain practical experience while they also join networks, share ideas, and look for innovative, cross-disciplinary solutions to global problems that have an impact on our local, national, and global communities.
ASPIRE internships offer students an unparalleled opportunity: (1) to partner with an agency/organization approved by faculty; (2) to participate in projects closely tied to academic curriculum; and (3) to apply critical-thinking, data analysis, leadership, methodological, and theoretical skills to the scope of applied work.
In pursuit of its mission, ASPIRE functions as an intermediary, a link, a mechanism among Arts & Sciences departments and programs, in addition to being a link to Toppel Career Center, and off-campus organizations.
