Intern Management

Program Manager

Program managers are full-time employees of the sponsoring corporations; they are not Purdue employees. This ensures that the students experience working for the sponsoring corporation, and this simply cannot be accomplished with a Purdue supervisor. Program managers must have an understanding of the projects assigned to the students so that they can provide (or know how to access) technical assistance to and guidance for the interns.

• They are aware of the particular intern hiring requirements of other managers at the corporation — such as college major or minimum GPA — and assist in identifying those students.
• They develop opportunities for interactions between corporate research and development staff and Purdue researchers.
• They assist their human resources office in identifying and recruiting high-performing Pathmaker students for future employment.

Interns as Management

A company may choose to hire students to function as onsite managers of interns. This has been effective when the corporate managers communicate virtually with the interns and corporate personnel make periodic visits to conduct training and oversight activities.

• Graduate-level students may be hired to manage the undergraduate interns.
• Experienced interns are promoted and trained to perform basic management duties.