Department of Physics and Astronomy

Internships

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An internship experience is required as part of the PSM program. This usually occurs in the summer months between the 1st and 2nd year of the program. An incoming student usually meets with the Program Director in the 1st Fall semester to discuss internship options. Internships should be secured by March of the 1st Spring semester (usually beforehand), so the student should expect to submit applications (if required) by late Fall. Internships commonly arise from the following sources:

  • A pre-existing internship employer with which ASU has a historical internship program. Internships with employers such as NASA-Kennedy Space Center, FL (Clements) and Borg-Warner, Asheville, NC (Thaxton) are usually available. Drs. Clements and Thaxton usually select the student(s) chosen for the internship(s) on a competitive basis. Faculty in the department are continuously working to develop new, reliable internship positions – examples include Oak Ridge National Lab, Naval Research Labs, Lord Corp. (NC Space Grant), and the Advisory Board companies and laboratories. Faculty and their respective collaborators may have official Research Assistantships (RAs) or unofficial funding available to hire students for internship experiences.
  • An internship opportunity identified by the student. Some students come in with a pre-existing relationship with an employer with which they would like to start or continue working. The PSM faculty work to arrange an official internship with these potential employers.
  • A new internship connection is made. Although this is the most difficult type of internship to secure, many students, with variable success, apply to internship opportunities "cold", without pre-existing connections in place. All students are encouraged to apply to various internships with the hopes that options become available and that new, enduring internship relationships can be created. Our growing number of Alumni may provide internship possibilities where there were none before. Once our programs become more established, we hope that more internship experiences may arise via our alumni connections.

We are constantly seeking internship opportunities for our PSM students, as well as other graduate and undergraduate students. The internship normally runs in the Summer months (May 15 - August 15), although sometimes they may occur during a semester or even over the Christmas holiday break.

The following list of companies have either provided internships, have shown interest in doing so, or are participating in our advisory board in a supporting role for program development:

  • NC Space Grant logoBorg Warner Corp.
  • Kennedy Space Center, FL
  • Stennis Space Center, MS
  • Lord Corp. via the NC Space Grant
  • IBM, Corp.
  • Brite Engineering
  • BioOptigen
  • NASA logoPisgah Astronomical Research Institute
  • NanoTechLabs
  • Microsoft, Corp.
  • SRC, Inc.
  • Chatham Research
  • Nextreme Thermal Solutions
  • U.S. Steel Buildings
  • United Chemi-Con

For more information on these opportunities, contact Brad Johnson (johnsonbg2@appstate.edu; 828-262-4996). Other internship opportunities may be found at the links below: