Last week, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School announced a new comprehensive summer internship program that will subsidize employer stipends in three categories as part of an initiative to allow students to explore a broader range of career options.
Managed by the Wharton MBA Career Management Office, the new program will focus on internship opportunities in the nonprofit and social impact arena, among interactive media and emerging technology companies and start-ups and at small businesses.
“Our students are looking at a broader array of career options than ever before, including those that provide a clear social benefit,” Wharton Dean Thomas Robertson said in a statement announcing the new initiative. “This new internship program is part of our concerted effort to provide support to students by offering them entry points to the jobs that will make a difference for years to come,” he continued.
The program’s first category will leverage employer relationships developed through the Wharton Program for Social Impact to establish internships for students consulting in small teams to leading regional nonprofits. Working four days a week over an eight-week period, students will undertake consulting assignments in business research, development and/or planning critical to the organizations’ futures. Subsidies from Wharton will help augment the stipends nonprofits are able to provide to students.
The second category, developed through the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative (WIMI), will give students a chance to intern at leading interactive media and emerging technology companies or at technology start-ups and smaller venture-backed firms.
The final category, developed by the Wharton Small Business Development Center (Wharton SBDC), will subsidize internships for students who choose to work on a mission-critical project for a C-level executive at a high-growth small business. Wharton SBDC, part of the Sol C. Snider Center of Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, has worked to establish a broad range of customized opportunities across several industries, functional areas and company sizes.
The new internship program is part of a series of innovative resources for students developed by Wharton’s MBA Career Management Office this year. Others include a focus on global careers, off-campus job fairs and new mentoring groups such as the Wharton Global India Mentoring Network.
To learn more about Wharton’s MBA Career Management Office, click here.
