Internships & Careers

VCUarts’ Interior Design alumni hold positions in many prominent architecture and design offices throughout the U.S. and Europe. Many firms in the Washington, D.C. area view VCU as the number one program for recruiting qualified candidates.

Alumni are engaged and active in the program, supporting current students through studio critiques, portfolio reviews, internships, job placements, and through activity in local chapters of design associations, such as ASID, IIDA, and IFDA.

Internships

Students in the BFA and MFA programs are required to complete an internship for credit as part of the program curriculum.

BFA students are eligible to complete an internship for credit after completion of IDES 431 Business Practices and their junior year. Students must enroll in IDES 493 during the semester in which they are employed as interns.

MFA candidates are eligible after completing the first year in the program and must enroll in IDES 693.

Download the Department of Interior Design Internship Work Contract (PDF).

For more information on course requirements, view the VCU Bulletin.

BFA Internship Coordinator
Emily Smith, smithea8@vcu.edu

MFA Internship Coordinator
Kristin Carleton, carletonkr@vcu.edu

IDES Internship Firms Contact List

The IDES Internship Contact List is a list of architecture and design firms and design-related employers that have recently hosted students from our programs. Due to the changing nature of professional work environments, some contact information might have changed. Verify a firm’s contact information by checking the firm’s website or call/email the firm’s contact directly.

Learning Objectives

What should you learn in an internship? While there are a wide range of possible learning objectives for an interior design internship, some general objectives will include:

• General Office Procedures: Written and verbal communication, preparing purchase and work orders, addenda/bulletin prep
• Materials Library: Filing catalogs and samples, updating pricing lists, locating product/service resources, interacting with vendors and reps
• Programming: Research, site measurements, code review
• Design Development: furniture/finish specs, space planning
• Budget Development: Estimating, pricing, bid analysis
• Drafting/CAD: Plans, sections, elevations, RCPs, details, construction documents, scheduling
• Presentation: Model making, perspectives, renderings, samples/materials boards, client conferences
• Shadowing/observing Professionals: Employee/client interactions, the decision making process, teamwork and coordination between disciplines, the submittal process, construction and/or installation

Your work at an internship for this program should include some or all of the above. If it doesn’t, then it probably does not qualify as an internship for the purposes of this requirement.