#248 How to Get Internship Ready and Make It Count with Julia Lapan, UVA Transcript
Flourish Coaching
Oct 13, 2026
THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 00:34
Whether your student is building a college list, getting ready to head off to campus, or already enrolled, there’s one question every single one of you should be asking: Is this college preparing them not just to earn a degree, but to build a successful career after graduation? See, most families focus on rankings, majors, campus tours, and cost. Those things absolutely matter. So don’t get me wrong, but I don’t believe they tell the whole story. My guest today is Dr. Julia Lapan, Executive Director of Career Design and Discovery in the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. Throughout her career, she’s helped reshape how one of the nation’s top universities prepares students for life after graduation-just the thing that we focus on here. So instead of waiting for students to find their way over to career services, UVA is now intentionally weaving career exploration, reflection, networking, and real-world experiences throughout the journey. What they are doing can positively influence how your family approaches college. So stick with me here. In our conversation, Julia is going to explain why the traditional career center model it just isn’t enough on its own. What helps students build confidence in meaningful professional connections, and why these experiences matter long before graduation. She also shares a new way to think about what students need from a college and what families should look for when evaluating any college experience. So whether your student is choosing a college, preparing to start their first semester, or already have their feet on campus, this conversation will help you think differently about what really prepares young people for success after graduation. You’ll discover a new way to evaluate colleges and better understand how students can intentionally use their college years to build confidence, connections, and career directions. I’m Lisa Marker Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and career clarity, a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right into another great conversation. Julia, welcome back to the show. It’s so good to have you.
Julia Lapan 02:58
Thank you so much, Lisa. I’m so thrilled to be here.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 03:01
That last conversation we had was so good. I thought, okay, we got to have you back on. And given your role, and for our people who haven’t heard it before, or your past role in your current role in our last episode, real briefly tell everybody what are you currently doing at the University of Virginia?
Julia Lapan 03:24
Yeah, so I am in a brand new role at the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at University of Virginia. I am the Executive Director for Career Design and Discovery, which is a brand new initiative that I’m actually now calling an imperative that involves integrating and bringing career design, career decision making, and self awareness to all our undergraduate students.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 03:57
I love it. I actually called you guys out as basically rock stars, in a recent episode I had where we where I talked about like what can go wrong with liberal arts degrees and it doesn’t have to with some intention. So people, I’ll put that episode in the show notes. But I called you guys out as like ah, there’s such intention around this that if your students are paying attention and because you’re already baking it into the UVA experience with arts and sciences, it’s not going to go wrong for them. So I love that. So as you are helping students discover and design careers, as we are too over here, we both know that internships matter, and I’m sure that’s part of your process, can you talk a little bit about what students learn from internships that they aren’t maybe getting out of the classroom? Why they’re important? Why they matter?
Julia Lapan 04:55
Absolutely. So, in career design speak. We think of internships as prototyping experiences, and some people prefer to call those trying things out, or experimenting, or exploring. But really, what internships are is they provide students a taste of the future. And in my experience, I see three big things coming out of students’ participation in internships, and and first of all, there’s data that show that students that college students that do at least one paid internship during college are better prepared for careers upon graduation. 100% But the you know the big things students get out of doing an internship. Number one, insights. Insights into what does a career field look like from the inside? How do things actually work? What What does a professional office look like in whatever field they’re thinking about? Number two, it’s an opportunity for students to learn and develop the practical skills that they will need for their future career success. This is an opportunity to connect what they’re learning or what they have learned in the classroom, and put that to work in the real world. And third, it gives students valuable social connections and professional connections that they can rely on and and lean into, you know, not only for jobs after graduation, but maybe additional internships. So, insight, skills, and connections are the three big things that I have seen students get out of a good internship.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 06:38
You know, I when I talk about like what can go sideways for kids after graduation, and and I hear from some kids that are getting like putting in 80 to 100 applications, not even landing an interview. I often see when I start working with them, and these are 20 somethings with like good degrees and good GPAs, but there’s no established professional identity that they’re communicating to the world, and I think that’s why they’re like landing flat and not getting the opportunities. And so I love how you tee up the value of an internship because naturally, on the other side of that, that professional identity will start to emerge. Are you guys at UVA? Here’s a question because I always say fall is internship hunting season for college students. It’s where when it commences. It doesn’t mean that they always landed in the fall. I know there’s always a. I’ve I’ve been in doing this work through a lot of economic cycles, and when there’s a tough economic cycle, sometimes it takes longer, more applications. It takes longer to land the opportunity. It might not happen till spring, and then January. There are high school internships available out there, and people sometimes go like, “What? But if you know where to look and you know how to communicate yourself, or even DIY it, they are out there. When are you guys encouraging your students to go after internships? Do you encourage them to try for internships for summer between freshman sophomore year? Do you put off sophomore to junior year? What does that look like?
Julia Lapan 08:14
I think it’s a really tricky question because there’s no one size fits all answer, and you know internships can come in so many different shapes and sizes, and you know timeframes. So, you know, 1520 years ago, what we saw was a very distinct line: full-time hiring in the fall, internship hiring in the spring. Very, very binary. As you’ve mentioned, now a lot of the internship hiring for college, at least, has moved into the fall semester, but it’s really industry dependent. So the industries that recruit in the fall tend to be the big companies that have big and robust campus recruiting machines. They tend to be, you know, finance, consulting, investment banking, big tech, engineering, yeah. But a lot of the smaller to medium-sized companies are recruiting in springtime. Now that doesn’t even take into account a lot of the the banks that are now beginning to move back their internship hiring timelines for students in their second year of college. So they’re they’re recruiting in the spring of a second year, not for the summer between second and third year, but for the summer between third and fourth year. So I think one thing folks should know is that you know internship hiring can really depend. The timing of it can really depend on the industry and the type of company.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 09:46
That’s so good. And what I hear there is always be ready.
Julia Lapan 09:53
Always be ready. And at the same time, you know, you had asked when do we encourage students to start seeking internships. I say when a student is ready, and that’s that’s again really depends on the student. I’ve had students, you know, there’s a myth that tends to go around at least on our college campus that employers don’t hire first years for intern internships, and that’s actually not true. Actually, I hear
Lisa Marker-Robbins 10:18
that, and it’s not just a myth on your campus, I hear that a lot, and there’s a lot of except. I see a lot of kids getting them, and I also see a lot of kids with great employment outcomes who weren’t able to land one after freshman year.
Julia Lapan 10:33
Absolutely, it’s not a it’s not a requisite. I what I say to students is weave an internship in at some point during your college experience doesn’t have to be after the first year, even after the second year, but some students are just ready. They just want to roll up their sleeves and and go to work. They’ve got that that career maturity. It’s a developmental issue,
Speaker 1 10:56
for sure.
Julia Lapan 10:56
And that and then for other students, they’re you know well well here’s the thing: some students don’t feel ready, and I want to push those students because I was just
Lisa Marker-Robbins 11:06
gonna. That was where I was gonna come in next. I was gonna say, like, I see a lot of kids waiting for confidence to arrive before they move, and it makes me a little nervous to say like, when you’re ready, because I go like, are we giving them permission to opt out of getting ready?
Julia Lapan 11:28
Totally. And you know, for for some students, you know, what I would recommend if you’re if you’re not feeling ready for an internship, maybe go out try to find a part time job, do Undergraduate research-that you know, connecting what you’re learning in the classroom, working with a professor, working with a team of graduate students-it can feel a little safer for students, and it also helps build some of those same skills that they’ll develop through an internship. Oftentimes, I see those students then, okay, now I will feel ready for an internship. But I’ve also had students say to me, “Well, I haven’t had enough courses, and again, this is so dependent on the actual opportunity. I have employers that absolutely will not hire someone without two years of college experience because they want them to have the maturity and the coursework. I have had other employers say, “Absolutely, I will take a first-year student. What I think people need to remember is that interns are learners, and the internship is is an opportunity for it’s really a learning opportunity and a growth opportunity for the student.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 12:45
I think I had a I hired an intern back in the spring. I’m trying to think it was March, and I now I’m using her as a contractor. But I just said, hey, we’re going to do a three month internship of a project. But I go into it knowing I’m going to be teaching my tech stack some systems that they that we just use in work, right? Slack or Drive or things like that. I’ll be teaching some professionalism, right? They know that. I want the kids and parents to hear like the people who are willing to offer internships, they know it’s a learning experience, and they already expect they’re they’re going to be mentoring you along the way, right? You’re not necessarily a burden if they are regularly offering internships. They know what to expect. So, okay. So I have a question. One of the things I was thinking about as you said this is I’ve had I actually I even think that one of these students that I worked with was a year ago. Calvin had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, got great grades, got a great degree, came out of a liberal arts background, had had an internship, and he ended up being a gopher. He ended up getting coffee and filing stuff, and so maybe I mean, as I’m listening to you, like there is something that still comes out that you’ve seen a work environment, you’ve seen how it operates, or some level of professionalism that you’re learning through that, but that’s not what most of these kids want. Do you have a way to help them understand how to sort the good opportunities? Like, how do you teach your students that?
Julia Lapan 14:34
Sure, and you know, there’s no foolproof method. But I would say, as you’re interviewing or as you’re speaking with the organization, you know, ask what what am I going to learn through this internship? What can I expect? You know, what kinds of projects can I expect to work on? Who will be my team members, and how will I be supervised? I think. That’s a really critical thing. Even in some of the research I had done a while ago on internships, the best internships were the ones where the interns had regular communication with their supervisor and had constructive feedback and multiple opportunities throughout the experience to get feedback, not just put on a project and then left to their own devices, and then you know at the end of the the opportunity given feedback. So I think it’s in the questions that students ask. I
Lisa Marker-Robbins 15:36
love that question of how will I be supervised? Because we we think about like oh what will I be working on and who will I be working with, but you’re going to grow if you are given the feedback. I like that question. That’s a and you’re right. It’s tricky. You’re not going to always be able to get to it, but it’s a good question, so I’m gonna let that question land for sure. Okay, so of the high value internships, I mean, I’m sure on UVA’s campus there are like coveted internships that kids are like that organization or that work that I’ve heard people have fantastic experiences. Let’s describe the candidate, the student who’s able to land them, because you just talked about like, well, if you’re not ready, and what does readiness look like? So there’s an internal readiness, but there’s, I would say, like a that’s a maybe a backstage readiness where there’s a front stage readiness of what I’m putting out into the world, that’s going to help me land that. So, what what might that look like?
Julia Lapan 16:46
Sure, I think you know, and this this advice actually comes from students themselves. We had last week; we just had a panel of fourth year students talking about how to to a group of first year students, and the first years were asking how can I prepare myself for internships, and the students, the fourth year students said, know yourself, understand, you know, what is it that you’re hoping to learn from the internship, display curiosity, go in and ask insightful questions. They said, “If you’re just going to the interview and checking a box, if you’re doing this internship because just because you think it’s going to prepare you for the future, without considering how your unique curiosities and values and contributions will connect. Then you’re going to be at a disadvantage, and I’m also realizing that I think what many of our students are not used to talking about has to do with their own contributions. You know, getting into this contribution mindset, not just what is this internship going to do for me, but what what do I have to offer? What what do I bring to the table? And the students that can weave a strong narrative that connects their interests and what they have to offer are the ones that are going to be the most successful.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 18:21
Okay, well, you’re speaking my love language once again, which is why I love talking to you so much, because we start our process really is know yourself deeply, create a filter for what aligns, and then go explore and validate so that you know your path forward. Right. So we’re also starting with know yourself, and I say to our students in our Launch Career Clarity course all the time, like you don’t sit down to do an informational interview even to say like, oh, tell me about your tell me what it means to be an actuary, tell me about your what it means to work at company X Y Z. The questions that we develop should always be a filter through us. Like here are my readers, right? So let’s just say like we’re creating the lens that we look through and examine because it doesn’t matter what somebody tells you about their job if you’re not filtering it through. What do you know about yourself first? So important, like begin with yourself. So I love that. I also like what you just said about because this is what every employer is going to ask on the other side. It’s funny if the kids are looking at internships like a con. As you were saying that, I’m like, oh, that’s a consumer mentality. Like, what can I get out of this? But employers on the other side of graduation are what can you bring to the table? You got to start that thinking early so that you’re leading with the skills that will benefit them. Right,
Julia Lapan 19:53
100%
Lisa Marker-Robbins 19:54
So when these kids are doing their internships and they come back. And this is part of their discovery and design process that you guys are doing. What do you ask them to do afterwards? Like, and I had an earlier episode. I just was telling you about it with Matthew Confer, and we talked about premortems, which I think everybody who is listening to this episode, if you’re going to go after an internship, go listen to the episode with Matthew on his risk framework and pre-mortems before you are action takers on things. But kind of the postmortem, what do you guys encourage them to do after the interview or after the internship?
Julia Lapan 20:40
Yeah, I mean, and ideally, I would love to see students keep a journal through through the internship. You know, I think it’s important for students to reflect on, you know, when I said, you know, those three things: the insights, the skills, and the connections. You know, what insights can I take away from this experience? What did I learn? Not just what did I do in terms of the skills or what artifacts did I create, but what what do I think of this industry or company or field? So you know, that’s this is they’re collecting data through the experience, and you know I like I always want students to take that time to evaluate the experience and to also track their skills. Right at the end of an internship is a great time to update their resume, and if they have questions about how they might put something on the resume using the connections they built through the resume, going back to their, you know, even sitting with their supervisor and saying, “Hey, this has been a great experience. Can you help me frame some bullet points for my resume going forward? And then on that note, with connections, stay in touch with the people that you met through the way along the way. You know, even before the internship ends, if you’ve identified someone who you feel like you click with, or you know, might potentially be a good mentor for you, you know, hey, can we stay in touch? Would you be willing to talk with me as I design the next chapter of my career? You know, internships are so valuable because it’s not only a trial period for the student, but it’s a trial period for the employer too.
Speaker 2 22:28
Right.
Julia Lapan 22:28
And what happens in many cases is that at the end of the a successful internship, an intern will be asked back, either for a second internship or maybe even a full time job. So I would say to you know to keep those connections warm and nurture those, and you know those will likely lead you to your next opportunity.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 22:53
If it here’s a question for you: Do you encourage if a student is invited back? Would you say advise them to go back, or if they have other opportunities, seek a new opportunity so that they’re getting some diversity there? Which would be your preference?
Julia Lapan 23:14
Again, no perfect world
Lisa Marker-Robbins 23:16
that doesn’t exist. It
Julia Lapan 23:18
really depends on the student, which is why I’m such a fan of students finding a good mentor to help them think this through. I’ve had students in this position multiple times through my career, and in some cases, the advice, or, or I should say more accurately, that what the student had decided to do was to go back to that employer, either because they loved that experience and they wanted to double down on it, or I will sometimes coach a student to say, you know, I had a great time in this internship. I’d love to return, but is there a way I might work in a different department or on a new project to diversify my skill set? And other times, students have multiple opportunities and decide to take a different opportunity at a new company, just to get a more well-rounded experience and exposure to a larger, you know, array of companies. Yeah. So again, it really depends. There’s no right answer.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 24:20
Yeah. So that’s good to hear that there’s no right answer to that one, right? And I see kids struggle so much with just risk taking in general, and that that could feel really risky to go ahead and go for something different when it might serve you better. So I like that idea of having a mentor to talk about it with. Right? We did. We have a previous episode with a really great organization that does mentorship, and I’m going to link to it in the show notes. But it’s a. Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, and they do a lot with NASA and whatnot and SpaceX. But we had a mentor and a mentee, and but to workshop the ideas and what direction you’re heading with somebody else, so much can be accomplished through conversation, right? I love that idea. So, okay, do you ever see at the college level parents getting in the way of the process?
Julia Lapan 25:26
You know, I’ve I’ve I have actually heard horror stories of parents showing up in a recruiter’s office asking, you know, why was my child not hired? I I’ve I’ve gotten phone calls from parents as the career director, and I you know I love talking with parents because I can empathize, I can relate. I mean I have my own daughter; she’s only in sixth grade now, but I know at you know at the end of the day, every parent just wants to know that their child is going to be okay. So I get it. You know, I think, and and I mentioned this, I think, on the last podcast, Lisa, that I think the hardest part of parenting is letting your child grow into the person they’re going to be, and not the person you want them to be. And I think where I see, I see good and well intentioned parents maybe pushing their child in a specific career direction because they believe that will be the most stable, the most secure, the most financially lucrative, and the the child has no interest in that field. And the child is trying their hardest to please the parents to perform. Maybe the child even believes that themselves. So helping, you know, my work as a career counselor and coach over many years has been to help the student untangle their motivations and untangle, you know, where is this coming from? Is this coming from someone outside of me, a parent, a significant other, or even just the societal narrative about what I should be doing with my life and career, and really helping students tap into what is their, you know, what is their deepest desire? Who are they truly, and who are they becoming? And once a student is is sort of free of those constraints. That’s when I see them flourish. But it should be an encouraging message,
Lisa Marker-Robbins 27:28
right, for us as parents. And I know you and I are on opposite ends of the parenting stages at this point. I I was just talking to a mom of one of our. It’s the young lady’s a recent college graduate, and she’s in our community. And the mom was talking to me, and she just said, “The mom was like, ‘I’m having all of this regret that I didn’t do a good job. And is she really? Because they’re letting a dream of a graduate school path die. It kind of the opportunities didn’t open up, and then when they did come through wait lists, the student turned them down because she’d already decided to go another direction, and now the mom was having all these feelings and wisely was like, I don’t want my daughter to feel these, but the discomfort and what I said is sometimes we just need to step back, and and shoulder that’s the adulting shoulder the discomfort ourselves that we’re experiencing, and realize that’s about us, and to process that some more. And I can see that mom is trying to be intentional, but the struggle is real. It’s really hard. So yeah,
Julia Lapan 28:42
yeah. I mean, I think we all parents could use, you know, another parent to talk to or someone like you. And I, I think, you know, it’s, yeah, it’s really hard.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 28:56
It’s hard. So if you, I know you’re looking at all these wonderful college students who are exceptional at UVA. Your previous position at UVA was in the engineering school, you know. So now you’re you’re aimed at the arts and sciences. Do you see kids with internships, high school internships that are there, and do you go like, ah, that’s the thing. Like you got to go get a high school internship if you can, or what do you think is valuable at the high school level? Because those internships are available for high school students; they can be difficult to land and to find. Which is, we try to help them find them, but a lot of kids are not going to be able to do that. So, what? How do you look at that high school experience, and what would your advice be to families?
Julia Lapan 29:45
Yeah, so I I don’t see you know an overwhelming number of our students coming in with internships, and you know again I think the answer depends on you know if you have a particularly. Motivated high school student that has a really strong curiosity and a desire to learn more, and an internship happens to be available, great, go for it. But would I say it’s a requisite? Absolutely not. I mean, because I I start to question. Well, you know, as I know, an internship is a learning experience, but also, how much can a high school student truly contribute in an internship at that point? So there’s there’s a fine line I think there. What I would love to see in incoming students is, and and I have yet to see this in many of our students, is just plain old fashioned work experience, life carding.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 30:44
I was going to say, like food service. Go work at the Hallmark store.
Julia Lapan 30:48
I scooped ice cream.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 30:50
I did too, and I got tennis elbow from
Julia Lapan 30:53
- Say, so I mean, and and I learned so much through that. And you know, so what do you see?
Lisa Marker-Robbins 30:59
So you’re like on the college side of the desk. I just want kids to go get a good old fashioned job because I see a lot of families go. Well, we got to make sure we get all the APs in, and then we’ve got our we’re on the football team or in the band or they’ve got all of the busyness over there. So what do you see that comes out of a job where you’re like, hey, evaluate your time constraints and prioritize maybe this over some of the other stuff. What’s the value of it?
Julia Lapan 31:29
Human skills, just the ability to relate to other people that are maybe outside of your day to day life. You know, if you’re working in a restaurant and an ice cream shop, lifeguarding, you’re seeing people that are, you know, that are coming in. They’re not. You’re not likely to have contact with them in other areas of your life. You are, you know, you’re having to be on time for something. You are having to, you know, take responsibility, show initiative, solve problems, and those human skills, those real life skills, are not only going to help you in the workplace later on, but they’re going to help you be a good college student. Yeah, I think one of the problems that I see with you know again this is really well intentioned, but this overly curated high school experience. Then a student comes to college and it’s yes they’re good at doing school. Yes they might be good at taking those AP classes, or they might be, you know, great at this one extracurricular, but it’s, but they sort of lost the spontaneity, the ability to live in the moment and respond to the people around them. That’s really the most important aspect of this.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 32:58
Yeah. So I had drawn on my iPad the other day just because I was brainstorming and thinking, and it was like, who is getting hired? So we hear like you’ve got to have some AI know-how, right? And then, and it’s true that hiring for entry-level jobs, the unemployment rate around along with new college grads is higher than the general population. There, that is a true thing that’s going on, but it’s like what I keep hearing. And actually, that episode I just said a couple weeks ago with Matthew Confer, he he’s working, he’s doing coaching with big corporations, right? And I said to him, I’m seeing like AI know-how skills that benefit the job, right? But then humanness, which is what you just said, and actually the humanness seems like one of the ones that we can begin building the earliest, right? And the ripple effect is going to go forward so much, and so like who I see in the 20-somethings and getting the jobs is is at the intersection of those three. Some AI know how. How do you leverage the tech? How do you? What skills do you have that you bring to the job? But you can’t. You got to have the humanness, and the humanness is what sets so many of these kids aside, apart from the general applicant pool at this point. And so I feel like you just said the same thing, really.
Julia Lapan 34:23
Yeah, and at UVA, you know, we’re we talk about skills like or capacities like wisdom and judgment. Those are skills that you only learn through living in the world.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 34:38
Amen. I love it. Always a pleasure to have you, Julia. I know we’ll do it again. I’m so glad you’re in my world, and we are so fortunate to have you at UVA. Oh,
Julia Lapan 34:50
thank you so much, Lisa. It’s always great to talk with you.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 34:54
Well, I’m looking forward to the next time already. Thanks, Julia.
Julia Lapan 34:57
Thank you.
Lisa Marker-Robbins 35:04
I hope today’s conversation helped to take some of the pressure off, while also giving you a clearer picture of what your student can do to become ready. You know, one thing that we kept coming back to is that students need to know themselves well and be able to communicate the story of who they are, where they’re interested in maybe heading, and what they can contribute, they can even do that while their story is still developing. Don’t let that make you opt out. See, I’ve found LinkedIn to be the perfect place to start telling that professional story, and it’s not just through their profile, but through what they post, repost, and comment. When I work with young people, I actually have them build their LinkedIn profile first, then use it to create their resume. LinkedIn gives them more room to think through their experiences, their skills, interests, and the professional identity they’re beginning to build. They then can pull the most relevant pieces into a very targeted resume, just like Julia said. LinkedIn also gives them a way to stay connected with the people they’ve met through internships and other valuable experiences. They can continue sharing what they’re learning and nurturing those professional relationships long after the experience ends. If getting started on LinkedIn or polishing that profile feels daunting to your student? My free LinkedIn profile builder walks them through what to include section by section, even if they don’t have a long list of professional experiences yet. Yet being that keyword, you can grab it at flourishcoachingco.com/linkedin, and I’m going to put it in the show notes. And you know what? If you could rate and review the podcast if you’re a regular listener, I’d really appreciate it. That helps us get to the feed of more families at the same stage, so they can work on launching into a thriving next chapter. Well, okay. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you again next week.
