An internship is a structured educational experience, which incorporates productive work experience as a part of a college student’s curriculum. An internship is a partnership between the student, community site organization and the University of North Carolina at Asheville. Through this experience, students are provided opportunities to enhance their academic knowledge and improve their basic skills, test career choices, develop professional competence, and witness classroom theories and principles being applied in real world situations; in return, the community site organization benefits by having a bright, creative, and enthusiastic intern make a meaningful contribution to the organization. In addition, a supervised internship provides the opportunity to log required clinical hours when applying to medical and allied health graduate programs.
Students in the Health Sciences program have the option of completing an internship as part of their Senior Capstone experience.
Types of Internships
Clinical/Rehabilitation Services
For those students preparing for a graduate program in a variety of traditional health occupations such as medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, dentistry, registered dietician, pharmacy, physician assistant, nursing as well as health occupations such as naturopathy, acupuncture/TCM, chiropractor, etc. Sites include hospitals, in-patient and out-patient clinics, and community-based free clinics.
Fitness
For those students who wish to intern at a community or corporate site offering fitness-related experiences. These experiences may include conducting fitness assessments, coordinating incentive events, providing personal training, teaching fitness classes, etc. Sites include: local club industry, YMCA, YWCA, after school fitness programs, and for-profit personal training companies.
Health Promotion/Public Health
For those students interested in providing health education or wellness coaching to a specific population or on a specific topic in health and wellness including corporate wellness and college health programs, among others. Sites include: health departments, spas, local for profit and nonprofit businesses and hospitals/clinics.
Non-Profit
For those students interested in working with and learning from interning in a non-profit organization. Examples of activities include: fund-raising, program/event planning, marketing, advocacy and policy development and other duties related to the non-profit organization’s mission. Sites include: QuestionWhy; YES; ChildrenFirst; YMCA; YWCA; ASAP; FEAST; WNCAP; and others.
For Potential Internship Sites
Thank you for your interest in becoming an internship site for UNC Asheville students. The basic requirements to become an Internship Site for UNC Asheville Health Sciences students include:
- Your willingness and ability to support student learning by providing the student supervised, educational experiences that align with the mission of your organization.
- Your willingness and ability to select a site supervisor who will take responsibility for assisting the student with her/his learning.
We would be glad to share your organization’s internship opportunity with the instructor for the Senior Capstone class who will review the opportunity for fit with currently enrolled students. If you would like, we can also share your information with all of the HS students. Please send your position description(s) to Katie Cox at kcox1@unca.edu.
In order to reach all students on campus we recommend posting the internship position on Bulldog NetWork, which is accessed through the Career Center. Bulldog NetWork allows you to indicate if a posting is for a job or internship. You will also be able to include information on the type of internship (paid, unpaid, credit-bearing).