More internship opportunities specifically designed for students with disabilities

After finishing yesterday’s post about the paid summer internships for students with disabilities at
Entry Point,
I did some searching and found a few other opportunities and wanted to share them here with you.

First, I found
Emerging Leaders,
Which, according to the official web site, is “a highly competitive program that places college students with disabilities in fulfilling summer internships and provides them with leadership development opportunities. Emerging Leaders partners with businesses to help them find outstanding young talent while also considering diversity and inclusion in their hiring practices.”

Also from the web site:
“Booz Allen Hamilton founded Emerging Leaders in 2001. The program currently is managed by the National Business and Disability Council."

There are 30 well-known, national employers participating in the internship program, including several financial, insurance, media, and pharmaceutical companies. The web site states that they are always seeking to expand this network of participating companies. So, if you happen to be a business that wants to help provide internships for students with disabilities, make sure to get in touch with the contact person named on the site.

Secondly, I found,
Experiential Education Programs for College Students with Disabilities
(Note: This is a Google html version of the original MS-Word document. A link to the original version is contained at the top of the Google html page)

This document is a gathering of various internship resourcess for students with disabilities. There are specific program names and locations where the internships take place, as well as associated web sites for more information. It does contain the two previous ones I’ve listed and linked above.

Finally, there are several U.S. government programs targeting students with disabilities, including
The U.S Department of Agriculture
(or USDA),
The U.S. Department of State's
student programs division,
And, even though it is not a federal agency, there is the internship program of the
American Association of People with Disabilities,
(or AAPD, which I list here because the organization has arranged government internships at several of the various federal agencies.

I’m certain there are other paid internship programs specifically designed for college students with disabilities that I have not listed. If you have one that you know of and want to share it, please leave a comment below.

Paid summer internships specifically for students with disabilities

Internships for college students, either undergraduate or graduate, are great exposures to career opportunities and valuable, professional learning venues. While many of these are unpaid, offering the experience as the most valuable asset to be gained, there are some that are paid. As one might imagine, there is usually a fierce competition for internships, especially the coveted paid ones.

I suppose the question to then be asked is, "Where does this leave students with disabilities in the competition?"

Some might argue that this jockeying for internship opportunities is a great introduction to the competitiveness that exists in the real-life workplace and that the students with disabilities need to get a taste of it to get themselves ready for life after college.

Okay, so for an answer to that question, how about we flip that coin. How about a paid internship specifically designed for students with disabilities?

Yes, such opportunities do exist and these don’t mean doing meaningless busy work at some sheltered environment set up just for those “poor, handicapped students.” There are actually some great opportunities that are paid summer internships coordinated through
Entry Point,
A program of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

From the Entry Point web site:
“The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has developed unique partnerships with IBM, NASA, Merck, NOAA, Google, Lockheed Martin, CVS, NAVAIR and university science laboratories to meet their human resources needs. Working with its partners, AAAS identifies and screens undergraduate and graduate students with disabilities who are pursuing degrees in science, engineering, mathematics, computer science, and some fields of business, and places them in paid summer internships.”

Granted, these internships are going to only be interested in specific degree fields related to the needs of the involved organizations and businesses, but the opportunities do exist.

Please share this information with any of your students who may qualify and be interested in these opportunities.