It’s possible, and many fellows do get full-time offers, but that should not be the expectation heading into the Field Experience. The agreement is for a 3-month role: you will contribute to the company’s work and mission, and it will provide an opportunity to learn and apply new skills to build your portfolio of professional work. Remember, specific tasks will vary from company to company, and we trust our fellows to be flexible and willing to take on challenges. At the end of the Field Experience, if both you and the company are interested in continuing to work together, you’ll decide those terms together.

At the end of the program, you will either earn a Pass for successful completion of the course (and a certificate of completion from Experience Lab at Penn attesting to that), or an Incomplete. Each course module contains more specific information about the criteria we will use to assess different assignments, and the requirements to successfully complete that part of the program. At a philosophical level, we believe in assessment for learning, not just assessment of learning—that is, we think the feedback you receive on your work should help you improve your craft, not just give you a grade. To that end, we ensure that you receive regular, specific, and constructive feedback, and that you have opportunities to integrate that feedback to make your work stronger. Sometimes that feedback will come from your peers, sometimes from instructors, and sometimes from your colleagues and supervisors at your Field Experience. Experience Lab at Penn is designed so that your completion of program assignments will directly serve your goal to become a more skilled and compelling practitioner in your chosen track—both during your Field Experience and in the opportunities you pursue beyond the program.