Internships
Perhaps the most impactful part of my college career was being placed at a two-semester, full-time, paid internship (extending my time at school from 4 years to 5 years). I learned a lot, got good work experience, and made new friends. I even stayed on as an employee for a while after graduating from college, which made getting my next job eaiser.
The internship program at my university was optional, but many educational programs have made internships a required part of their training. The most well-known example is medical residency, where new medical degree recipients work under the supervision of senior clinicians to work towards obtaining a license to practice medicine.
My internship placement was straightforward: I looked through a binder of possible internships, applied to one, and luckily they accepted me.
For programs that require internships as part of their training, a better system is obviously needed. The system commonly used for medical residencies and many other internship types allows the prospective interns and the internship sites to rank each other after going through an interview period. Once all the interns and sites have finished ranking each other, an algorithm is used to instantly place interns at sites, weighing the prospective interns’ preferences higher than the sites’ preferences.
Ranked Placement
I’m excited to announce that my Reflective Software co-founder Eric Saxby and I built and launched such a system in late 2024. We call it Ranked Placement. Since its launch, it has matched hundreds of students in internships for our pilot customer, the Bay Area Practicum Information Collaborative.
Ranked Placement is an easy-to-use application and placement system that can be used for various types of ranked-choice internship and practica matching. We are now ready to onboard additional customers. Please contact us at contact@rankedplacement.com to learn more.