What if you can’t do an internship?

For various reasons that are above my current knowledge level as an individual contributor, many international students can’t do contractor roles in US companies, but are allowed to do internships.

But even if they can do internships, they may have a harder time securing internships because a company may not be able to sponsor work visas and therefore, is biased against hiring interns that they cannot convert to full-time one day.

Disclaimer: I do not have full knowledge of how H-1B, F-1, or J-1 visas work. I am a US citizen and became aware of how much privilege this brought me even for applying to internships. I can only describe alternatives that I’ve heard about and saw two international friends—The Canadian Friend and The Extroverted Friend—explore during grad school.

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Here are some alternatives to internship and contractor roles:

Apply to fellowships

I have a Canadian friend¹ who landed an architecture fellowship for developing research related to learning in various school spaces. (Her background is in developmental psychology, so this was an unexpected but very interesting industry opportunity.)

The fellowship lasted about 3 months, which is equivalent to a summer internship. The Canadian Friend got great, relevant industry experience and produced a full data report that she was able to showcase as a concrete industry milestone.

Most importantly, The Canadian Friend was able to use the connections that she made within the fellowship to network with other people.

Fellowships appear to more flexible because some are paid through stipends or grants, not employment.

Apply to industry postdocs

My dream postdoc for a while was with Lego or Sesame Street. I’ve also had my eye on the AI Now Institute since 2017, back when I lived in New York City.

While I was not looking to transition into academic postdoc roles, I had looked into industry postdocs for a while. Like fellowships, these payment for these roles may be more variable. If you look into them and learn something, please report back and I will revise this post!

Based on job posts I’ve seen, these postdocs also are 1-2 years of funding with potential for renewability. They are research-based but obviously in industry. Not only would this be incredible industry experience and lead to great networking connections, but I suspect that there will be more academic-sympathetic/empathetic individuals in these roles that would be your manager or mentor.

Create your own workshops

The Extroverted Friend² didn’t wait for opportunities for experience to come his way—he created his own work experiences. He is now a UX researcher for one of the largest video gaming companies in the world.

During grad school, The Extroverted Friend created and led a series of zoom training courses about games user research. Getting a job in UXR for gaming was his dream job, so he created opportunities to showcase his expertise. Moreover, because his academic background is in memory and perception, he was directly able to translate his relevant expertise about how to make video games more memorable.

If you need an outlet for showcasing your expertise and translating your relevance to a specific industry, consider creating your own outlets like zoom workshops.

Create your own projects to add to your industry “portfolio”

There are many example projects online. If you need experience learning a technical skillset or an opportunity to showcase your expertise, create your own project: (1) develop a prototype (with AI tools like Claude Design, it’s pretty easy to vibe-code a prototype these days); (2) develop a research & analysis plan; and (3) generate a slide deck (a common “readout” format in most industries).

Then add all these materials to your personal website to show that you have relevant experience thinking through the problems that you’ll likely be tackling in your target role.

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AI was not used to write, edit, or brainstorm this post. All mistakes and em dashes are my own.