A focused research internship is an important part of a complete undergraduate physics curriculum.  During an internship you can make contacts with new peers and mentors, and get a new perspective on your field of study.  You can choose to go abroad and have a very different cultural experience.  Importantly you can sharpen your baseline knowledge of physics and sharpen your skills in open-ended problem solving, information gathering and synthesizing, and communication.  These are skills for which physicists are known, and they are useful no matter what ultimate career path you follow.

Summer internships afford an opportunity for full-time immersion into the work environment, industry or business where you plan to be situated upon graduation.  Used to your advantage, an internship will allow you to refine your career objectives and develop your career plan.  You can get insights on what courses you will need to take, and what skills you will need to develop to make your plan succeed.  No matter what your career objectives are, an internship will give you a competitive edge in in hiring or graduate school admissions.  Many employers look at resumes for work history, and graduate schools certainly look at research experiences.

You owe it to yourself to give some thought and preparation to your internship decision.  Before setting out to find an internship, answer the following question for yourself,

What type of work would I like to do? In what field or subspecialty would I lilke to work?  What specific skills do you want to develop or experiences do you want to get under your belt?

At what type of organization would I like to do your internship; university, national lab, government and policy organization, private business, K-12 school, or a non-profit organization?

What do I want to gain from an internship; work experience, a research publication, a follow-on co-op job?

Where do I want to do an internship?  Your hometown? Out-of-state?  Out-of-the-country?

Finding a university-based physics research internship should be simple for a student with a reasonable academic background.  There are many NSF-funded summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs across the United States.  But these structured programs are not your only option for a university-based summer internship.  Any professor can offer a student a paid or unpaid research opportunity.  Most budgets for federally-funded research programs will include money for undergraduate research assistants, and most agencies will entertain requests for supplemental funds for undergraduate students.  Going this route definitely requires your prior planning and a lot of personal initiative.

All 17 of the DOE national labs participate in the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships (SULI) program.  Each DOE lab is funded for a certain number of SULI internships, and there is a centralized application database where you can specify your preferences for DOE lab placement and area of study.

Overseas opportunities are just as available for physics majors.  CERN for instance has a summer program, as well as an extended program for students that can spend a period longer than a 10-week summer.  The Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD) offers the RISE (Research Internships in Science and Engineering) program.  RISE is a summer internship program for undergraduate students from the United States, Canada and the UK in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics, earth sciences and engineering.  It offers unique opportunities for undergraduate students to work with research groups at universities and top research institutions across Germany for a period of 2 to 3 months during the summer. RISE interns are matched with doctoral students whom they assist and who serve as their mentors. The working language is English.  All interns receive stipends from the DAAD to help cover living expenses, while partner universities and research institutes provide housing assistance.

Internships are conceivably available at any number of US-funded research facilities that are overseas, e.g., the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), any number of astronomical observatories like the Southern Africa Large Telescope in South Africa, the Magellan Telescopes in Chile, or the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in India.

In addition to universities and national laboratories you may find a company that interests you but that does not have a formal internship program. Internships in industry for physics majors are probably less common than university or national lab-based programs.  But there hundreds if not thousands of private technology companies that employ physicists, and there are some opportunities in fields not directly related to physics, like finance firms.  Internships in the finance sector are often high-paying and may lead to a career in the finance industry. This is a good option for students who do not wish to continue on to graduate school.

You will have to do more leg-work to secure an industry internship.  You will for sure have to develop a resume and cover letter.  As you develop both of these documents think about what you would like to gain from the internship and what you have to offer the company in return. Let the company know what your goals are and what you want to learn.  If the employer is interested, you can work together to design a list of responsibilities and activities for your internship.

Getting a summer internship in the K-12 teaching sector would seem to be difficult since most K-12 schools are out of session in the summer.  But there are private schools, summer science programs, community centers and camps that employ summer interns.

Investigate the internship opportunity before you accept it.  Read as much as you can about the institution or company, and the location.  Seek the advice of your faculty advisor, the career counseling office on your campus, the internship coordinator at your potential choice, peers and mentors in professional societies to which you belong, the primary research journals, and the many social networking sites that are available.

Some questions you might ask are:

Will the internship allow you to do the type of work I’m interested in?

Is housing provided, and how far is it from the exact work site?

What types of projects have interns typically done? How hands-on will it be? (Ten weeks of merely observing others can be boring and fruitless.)

Are interns treated like valued employees or cheap labor?

Will there be field trips, special travel, social events, and other special activities where you will be expected to participate?

What kind of supervision will I receive?

Can you be put in contact with former or current interns? (Ask them what that liked and what they didn’t like.)

Importantly, you will find that different internships pay different stipends.  For the structured NSF REU or DOE SULI programs you can expect a stipend of between $3000 and $5000.  A housing and transportation allowance may be provided as well.  But some internships, like those in really desirable sites like the White House or Congress, are unpaid internships.  Securing a reasonable compensation is an important professional skill. So make sure you understand the pay structure of any internship.  But internships are supposed to be about the experience, skill building, professional development and intellectual exploration.  Depending on your career objective it might be better to take an unpaid internship.

Remember, an internship is a genuine opportunity to excel – and that nearly 70% of internships, paid or unpaid, result in a follow-on employment offer.