Employer Performance & Supervision

Once an intern has been placed at an employer location for the internship period, the employer supervisor and the Academy Director must make sure the intern is having an appropriate educational experience, and also stays productive. This is primarily done through a two-step process:

1. A series of internship visits is scheduled by the Academy Director (at least twice during the summer) during which the Director visits the worksite, and "interviews" both the intern and the supervisor, making sure each is living up to the other's expectations. The Director also ascertains that certain, agreed-upon competencies are being "taught" by the employer, and learned by the student.
   
2. The employer supervisor schedules periodic (no less frequently than bi-weekly) reviews/discussions with the intern, to ascertain how well the student is doing from their perspective, and to also offer constructive criticism to benefit the student, and improve their future work experience.

As discussed earlier, if the employer and the Academy Director have already put together a six- to ten-week internship work plan, then it should not be difficult to keep an intern busy and productive during the entire term of the internship. A "gap-analysis" may also be helpful to the student, so they can better understand why there may be a difference between the employer's observations, and their own. The key during this time is making sure the intern is busy doing productive work. It is the employer's responsibility to avoid putting the student in a position where he/she is doing mundane, trivial, repetitive work for days or weeks on end. It's certainly alright for the student to "start at the bottom" but since the internship is supposed to be a learning experience, capitalizing on the student's prior classroom learning and training, the internship should also put the student in an environment where they are "pushed" to learn new things, and contribute to the organization's success, and their own.