On Virginia Intern Day, Virginia Tech celebrates being named one of the top employers for interns

In the official proclamation that declares the last Thursday in July to be Virginia Intern Day, the governor urges every resident of the commonwealth to join in recognizing "the positive impact that experiential learning has on preparing students for success in life."

You don't have to say that twice at Virginia Tech.

For the second year in a row, the university was named one of the commonwealth’s top employers for interns by Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership, a program of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. This fall, Career and Professional Development's Campus internEXP program will debut 46 new internship opportunities, more than doubling the number it offered previously through a wage-matching grant from the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia.

Student Affairs, for instance, will host 31 internships in fields as diverse as IT development, student success, photography and videography, social media and communications management, life design peer coaching, and advancement and fundraising. "When a student develops strong technical skills and they couple those skills with guided mentorship and learning about how and why our departments serve students the way we do, they begin to see the bigger picture of how Virginia Tech works," said Matt Ebert, director of the Office for Learning Partnerships and Strengths-Based Initiatives. "That kind of systems thinking is invaluable for young professionals headed into the workforce."

Elevating the Campus internEXP experience is a zero-credit class that teaches participants professional competencies such as communication, teamwork, interpersonal skills, professionalism, and productivity, better preparing them for the next internship or the first job after graduation. “The Campus internEXP program is all about helping students connect what they’re learning in the classroom to their internship, integrate that learning into their understanding of their career interests, and reflect on what that means for them moving forward,” said Julia Ward, assistant director of professional development and experiential programs with Career and Professional Development.

That 81 students will get a paid work experience without ever leaving Blacksburg is a boon for the Virginia Tech Advantage initiative, which aims to provide experiential learning opportunities for all students, regardless of income or ability to relocate for an internship. “It’s really about equity and access,” Ward said.

Five Hokies who recently participated in the Campus internEXP program shared what their Virginia Tech internships were like and how they helped prepare them for their next steps.

Josh Taibbi, senior from Roanoke

Prototyping studio exhibits intern with University Libraries

Josh Taibbi’s internship with University Libraries began with a deceptively simple assignment: design a kid-friendly exhibit piece to engage the children at Rainbow Riders, a local child care center.

That was it. In other words, the sky was the limit.

Luckily, Taibbi had learned from his industrial design major how to tackle design research, including studying the development stages of preschoolers. After the director of Rainbow Riders mentioned her desire to allow kids to see themselves in different ways, Taibbi decided to create an interactive light wall exhibit like nothing he’d ever made before.

People who stand in front of his psychedelic digital mirror find themselves reflected back in undulating, hypercolor waves. “It’s an inherently physical exhibit,” said Taibbi, who tested a prototype on visitors at Virginia Tech’s Science Festival and saw “lots of running around the floor, lots of cartwheels.” Perfect for preschoolers, who will enjoy the exhibit once it’s installed this fall.

For Taibbi, the autonomy and creativity he enjoyed during his two-semester internship confirmed that he’s chosen the right field. “My ultimate goal is to create things that make people feel good about themselves and about the world they live in,” he said.

Claire Branscome '24, from Blacksburg

Intern with the Virginia Tech Autism Clinic’s SAFE program

Keeping the lights down. Reducing sensory stimulation. Having a quiet area to retreat when overwhelm hits.

Before interning with Virginia Tech Autism Clinic’s Supporting Autism Friendly Environments (SAFE) program, Claire Branscome didn’t know the extent to which a few simple adjustments like these could make community events, like Hokie BugFest or a Virginia Tech women’s basketball game, more enjoyable and accessible for people with autism. She’d learned about autism-spectrum disorders from classes in her cognitive and behavioral neuroscience major, but her internship added real-world experience to that scientific knowledge.

During spring semester, Branscome organized a sensory-friendly study session at the Newman Library for students on the autism spectrum. More than a dozen students came, building connections within their community. “There’s a growing understanding that not everyone is neurotypical,” said Branscome. “It's why it’s crucial to create these spaces."

With mentorship from her supervisor and guidance from the Campus internEXP class, Branscome brushed up her professional skills, refined her resume, and landed her first post-graduation job as a behavioral support clinician for a Fairlawn-based health clinic. The clients? Autistic children and adolescents.

Elisabeth Wasserman, junior from Fairfax County

Student coordinator for VT Women Connect

At the VT Women Connect leadership lunch in April, Elisabeth Wasserman had been busily snapping photos of the speaker, Pamplin College of Business Dean Saonee Sarker, for the program’s Instagram account when she got a surprise. Anna LoMascolo, co-director of the Virginia Tech Women’s Center, thanked her in front of the large audience for being a wonderful intern. “She’s helped build this internship into something much better than what we could have come up with,” LoMascolo said.

Wasserman excelling in an internship that involved photography, event planning, and social media was a bit of a plot twist for a double major in statistics and computational modeling and data analytics. But Wasserman was attracted to building a supportive community for women, and she was game for anything, from crafting social media posts to making cotton candy at Women’s Center drop-in events.

While she also did research and data analysis for her internship, exercising skills more closely related to her majors, she valued the ability to do creative work as an intern. “Data science is really versatile, but regardless of what you're studying, you could end up anywhere,” Wasserman said. “I think it's important to be open to all sorts of fields and to put yourself out there as much as you can.”

Renaldo Lynch '24, from Prince George

Event planning and student engagement intern for Ujima

On the last Monday of the spring semester, when other students were hunkered down over final projects and class presentations, Renaldo Lynch dashed around the Squires Commonwealth Ballroom to set up tables, manage a catering delivery, and prep a slideshow for Ujima’s end-of-the-year celebration.

The event was the last hurrah for his year-long internship with Virginia Tech’s Black culture living-learning community — an opportunity he’d scrambled to apply for when he saw it posted on Handshake last year. Interning on campus gave him a flexible schedule to work around his classes and unusual autonomy. Lynch’s supervisor, Ujima Director Dalayna Gardner, trusted him to organize key events, like the faculty-student mixer for Ujima’s 100-plus residents. “It gave me confidence that I actually knew what I was doing as an intern.”

The social media content creation and event planning skills Lynch learned interning on campus have already come in handy. After graduating in May, the public relations major headed to Bentonville, Arkansas, for a similar internship with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Carly Daffan '24, from Fairfax

Undergraduate assistant for outreach in the Office of Global Engineering, Engagement, and Research

Even as a busy industrial and systems engineering major, Carly Daffan managed to squeeze in study abroad trips to Europe and Panama. That’s why a listing for a Campus internEXP internship in the Global Engineering, Engagement, and Research Office called her name. “A lot of engineers don't realize that they can study abroad, even if they wanted to,” said Daffan, “so it was almost like the job was made for me. When I got the interview, I was ecstatic.”

As she coordinated 11 global engineering ambassadors in their work to help engineering students find and fund study abroad experiences, Daffan was given responsibility and respect from day one. “In six months I feel like I've gained more experience than I ever have at any of the other companies I've interned for,” she said.

Through the Campus internEXP course and mentorship from her supervisor, she also picked up valuable soft skills, like learning to lead meetings and tailor information to different audiences. As Daffan said, “The dean of engineering only has 30 minutes to get a year's worth of information.” It’s knowledge that will come in handy when she meets with the CEO at her first post-college job at an Atlanta software development company.

For more information about joining Campus internEXP as a student or as an employer, visit the program website.