How are service learning students different from interns?
Internships help students get work experience and acquire useful skills. Internships, practicums, field education, and clinical experiences are often stand-alone learning experiences without a substantial class component. Interns usually spend most of their time working at their company or agency and less of their time on class activities like reading books, doing assignments, writing papers and meeting with professors. Many internships require 70-120 hours of work per semester. Sometimes interns are paid. Service learning enhances the academic content of a regular class in an academic department. Time spent on service learning is part of a student’s overall out-of-class work for a course, like studying, reading books, doing homework and writing papers. Service learning usually requires 10-30 hours of work per semester. Service learning activities are always uncompensated.
