The American view: Why the future of internships may lie beyond the office

What does an “internship” look like when it takes place totally outside of corpo containment? I don’t know yet, but that’s my goal for this summer: to turn my conventional and proven white-collar internship program into a viable variant that’s untethered from the usual cubicle farm.

For context, I used to be an Air Force unit commander in the reserve components. Back then, I had two Chief Master Sergeants (E9) and two Senior Master Sergeants (E8) to mentor. I was appalled by how little my four leaders had learned in their Professional Military Education (PME) courses. They were all technically proficient, but their understanding of organisational behaviour and mentoring was sadly lacking. That skill gap made it unnecessarily difficult when they attempted to carry out my reforms.

I decided to address the problem in-house. I designed my own Senior Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development program. By that, I mean I selected a stack of books, white papers, and articles for their ability to explain key concepts and prompt discussion. They I drew a through-line from concept to concept so the lessons all tied together. Each drill weekend, after the unit was dismissed, the SRNCOs would gather in my office. We’d drink a toast to the unit, and thereafter all military rules on decorum were suspended. We could “cuss and discuss” the assigned content until everyone understood the key learning objectives.

I ran my SRNCOPD program for four years, up until I retired from the military and returned to corpo space. My new civilian supervisor was one of my former SRNCOs (he’d retired a year before I did). My retired Chief wanted to professionalise his rapidly expanding team, so we reengineered my old military professional development program into a new corpo version. Couldn’t include the opening toast anymore, but the interactive seminar discussions remained.