PhD Student seeking external Industry Internship

[sambaprof]

I am new to PhD student advising/supervising as I just started PhD student advising after I joined my current Tenure-Track faculty
position for past two years. So I am still learning how to graduate the PhD students successfully.

One of my international PhD student that I am advising/supervising has mentioned that he has got an internship offer for 1 year. He says he needs to take it to repay the loans for his MS studies from the prior institution that he came from.

I have been supporting the student with stipend and tuition for the past Fall 2022 and Spring 2023 semester. The particular student seem to be happy with the support except for the health insurance issue (I supported health insurance for 2021-2022 and told that going forward I will not be able to support health insurance as I thought different students have different health care needs and it is better to give the support through summer stipend, part of which the student can use for health insurance needs).

I earlier told him not to go for any external internship and focus on the research for next 2 years, as I have funding to support. But he still is intending to go for internship at least for summer if not for the next 1 year.

It is frustrating that we are even having such a conversation, as I want him to dedicate and focus on the research.

My thinking is I cannot provide any stipend and student support, if the student has outside internship.

Please advise how to handle this.

[Puget]

This is not your call-- you need to bump this up to your DGS and other relevant parties (see below) immediately.

In most programs, if the student is full time in the program, they would not be permitted to take a full time paid academic year internship (unless industry internships are a normal part of the program), but this is a university/program policy issue, not one for you to set on your own. Talk to your DGS.

If you are supporting the student on a grant, you certainly cannot certify them having 100% effort on the grant if they do not. Talk to your grants manager.

Also you said this is an international student-- depending on their visa status, there are special rules about internships and all off-campus employment for international students-- internships generally have to be part of their program of study (i.e. they need an associated internship course). Your international students and scholars office will be able to advise you/the student on this.

[research_prof]

Internships for PhD students should typically happen in summer and last for 3 months. Worst case should be that a student takes summer plus a few more months off for an internship.

I have to say that I personally feel not covering for the health insurance of PhD students is a mistake. PhD students should be supported to the fullest extent possible.

[pgher]

International students can do CPT, which is work that is important to their degree. I generally take the approach that what's good for the student's long-term success is good for me. So the question I would have is, Will this internship enhance the student's long-term success?

I know PhD candidates who took an industry job and then never completed their degrees. I mostly agree with the sentiment that a short-term (say, just the summer or just one semester) internship is good but longer is bad. It's hard to be away from a research project for that long and return to it.

[mamselle]

It's also possible for an industry site to hire the student away by promising to complete their INS materials and go through green-card procedures with them.

That's not necessarily a bad result for the student, although it may mean the lab needs to find a new person to replace them.

M.

[fizzycist]

I find it appalling that your university let's you decide whether or not to offer health insurance. Sounds like the grad students at your school need a union!

I strongly discourage my PhD students from doing internships (which are not common in my field anyway). It takes them long enough to graduate as is. And if I have to assign other postdocs/students to work on their experiments while they are gone, it can cause unnecessary conflict.

But I offer the students a decent RA stipend and usual tuition, benefits, etc. so they are not desperate to look elsewhere.

[fizzycist]

to answer a question from OP's private message:
the stipend I offer works out to 30-33k/yr, depending on whether they have advanced to candidacy. (monthly, it is ~1.5x more per month in summer than in academic year). This stipend is pretty common in my field, though my offer is at the high end for my institution. I offer the same standard benefits to students that they receive on any TA/RA/etc., which is primarily health insurance. I don't have to think about it, it just is automatically included as default.

[Hibush]

There are lots of important issues raised in this message.

For the immediate expectations, rules and procedures, the DGS is absolutely the first contact. Don't try to guess at any of that. Let your responsible colleague guide you to the compliant and most successful route for you and your student.

International students often don't know how important and how expensive it is to have good health insurance in the US. At my school, student health insurance is $4500 per year and we budget for a 10% annual increase. That rate is less than half the staff health insurance cost, because students are mostly in their early 20s, they have to use the student health clinic as a first stop for health care, and those with more expensive conditions tend to stay on their parents' plans.

Some institutions don't have a rational plan for providing health insurance. It only takes a few years for the duct tape and baling wire to start popping on cob-job contingency arrangements. Faculty and graduate programs need to be communicating with administration so that there is guaranteed full health coverage for every graduate student.

Graduate stipends are also all over the place. Faculty at schools with substandard graduate stipends are at a huge disadvantage because students can and should decline such offers. Sometimes students don't realize that they were offered a bad deal until after they show up. Sometimes those students get gaslighted into thinking they got a normal deal. I have a sense that more information is becoming available to prospective grad students, and they can get choosier. OP will have to figure out how to work in that environment, and with the added competition of (temporary?) paid internships that cover their living costs.

[filologos]

I have a sense that more information is becoming available to prospective grad students, and they can get choosier.

See, for example, phdstipends.com.