Dear Penn Sophomores:
Yesterday Career Services sent an email to Penn sophomores to inform them of planned changes to the internship recruiting timeline for next year. We immediately received feedback from a substantial number of students who had been planning to study abroad during Fall 2015 who felt that they had not received enough time to adequately plan for such changes and who were not comfortable with the option of using videoconferencing to conduct their internship interviews from abroad. We apologize for not making the decision earlier in the year, but we felt it was important to gather statistics and data from the 2015 internship cycle to better inform our decision about the optimal timing for internship recruiting. We were not able to make a decision until right before Spring Break and so announced it as soon possible when classes resumed.
We have heard from a significant number of students with concerns about the proposed change, and at this point we have decided that the best course of action will be to postpone the implementation of fall internship recruiting until Fall 2016. For current sophomores, on-campus interviewing for non-technical internships will take place in Spring 2016. Current freshmen should expect that internship recruiting will take place in Fall 2016 which will give students more time to adequately plan.
Again, our goal in Career Services is to help each and every student to clarify and pursue their career interests and we hope that the revised timeline will work for all of our students. We urge rising juniors who are studying abroad next fall to meet with a career counselor this spring or summer to discuss any career concerns they may have and to plan in advance for their return to campus in Spring 2016.
Sincerely,
Career Services
