Career and Professional Development has been awarded a $100,000 Institutional Internship Data Collection Grant to improve “career outcomes intelligence,” a rich set of data-driven insights about students’ career outcomes.

The grant, offered by the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV), will help Career and Professional Development uncover how internships and other work-based learning experiences foster career readiness and employability among students and bolster the office's ability to collect and analyze data about graduates’ first career destinations and career trajectories.

“This grant comes at a pivotal juncture in which institutions of higher education within the Commonwealth of Virginia and beyond are being asked to facilitate students’ experiences in ways that lead to a higher return on their investment in postsecondary education,” said Matthew P. Cowley, associate vice provost for career and professional development.

“While it is true that internships and work-based learning lead to higher rates of postgraduate success, wielding institutional data in a way that yields more profound insights into student outcomes and spurs participation in internships and work-based learning requires both interdepartmental collaboration and resources. Career and Professional Development aims to use the resources provided through this SCHEV grant to produce an institutional dashboard that will grow in its potency as we strengthen relationships with collaborators across the university."

One purpose of the Institutional Internship Data Collection Grant is to develop sustainable processes for collecting data from multiple sources into a single dashboard that provides a holistic perspective on students’ work-based learning participation and its connection to their career trajectory. Information will come from a variety of sources at Virginia Tech, such as

  • The first destination survey
  • The summer experiences survey
  • Campus internEXP
  • The Bridge Experience Program
  • The Cooperative Education and Internship Program
  • Academic departments with work-based learning requirements, including participants in the Bridge Experience Program

Particular areas of interest in the data include

  • The extent to which students are participating in paid versus unpaid internships
  • The correlation between internship compensation and starting salaries for students within the same industry/job function
  • The gaps in employer relationships that diminish access to opportunity
  • The relationship between work-based learning location and first-destination geographical choices

The grant will support hiring a graduate intern to create sustainable processes for collecting and combining data on work-based learning as well as two undergraduate outreach interns to create a social media campaign and encourage students and graduates to respond to surveys and data collection requests.

Additionally, the grant will enable onboarding critical technology that can quickly surface relevant internship and work-based learning opportunities to students, establish mechanisms for easy data collection and visualization, and develop a means to better understand the landscape of employer relationships on campus and implement intentional employer outreach and development strategies.

As internships and work-based experiential learning become a hallmark of a Virginia Tech education, including through Virginia Tech Advantage, boosting career outcomes intelligence will be vital for ensuring the university’s value proposition to students.

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