How science careers are made: apartment rentals and transit vouchers

Internships are a key part of the transition from undergraduate education to graduate programs and the workforce. However, systems in both higher education and professional settings marginalize and harm the prospects of students whose identities lie outside of those of the dominant groups. This study’s purpose was to understand the experiences of marginalized young people applying for and working in STEM internships—and how those experiences shaped their perspectives of career pathways in STEM fields. To shed light on this issue, researchers conducted 12 long-form group interviews with 45 current undergraduate and recently graduated students majoring in STEM disciplines and representing a wide variety of US higher education institutions and geographies. Results showed young people make decisions about internships based on needs for basic resources—housing, transportation, food, safety, and compensation—which have little to do with the STEM content of the internship itself. The relative accessibility of each resource is interrelated and measured against the others. Together, the availability of resources determines both the positions students apply for and the offers they accept. These findings have implications for efforts to make STEM career paths accessible to young people from diverse backgrounds.