Undoubtedly, the tools used to complete an internship need a house cleaning, along with some elbow grease, but internship, philosophically, is still a period of time in which experienced practitioners guide, mentor, sculpt, train and advise younger professionals in what should be a reciprocally beneficial relationship. Such a simple definition, yet it is so difficult to discern why so many people despise the internship process and attribute it as the reason for which they are incapable of achieving licensure. I believe the apparent, perceived or actual, failure of today's internship model can be directly associated to the lack of drive, desire and persistence of both emerging and seasoned professions to take personal responsibility for refining and using the tools which are available to us.

IDP, which is often confused as being internship, is only one of the plethora of tools an intern or employer can utilize on the way to licensure. The options are endless for creative solutions beyond these standard mechanisms; they just need to be flushed out, so there is no sense in this essay to write out a multipoint plan to overhaul expensive, confusing, or laborious bean counting processes when there is a greater dilemma at hand.

We must find a way to keep individuals from being disenfranchised, by providing more than an end all reporting system to prove exposure to a variety of architectural areas of expertise. It needs to be exclaimed and embraced that the outgrowth of a successful internship is productive and competent Architects which, in turn, enhance the prestige and success of the profession as a whole. If everyone were to take this seriously, an internship tomorrow could be a co-habitual relationship where a seasoned profession diagrammatically teaches an emerging profession a complicated detail; that same emerging professional then teaches the seasoned professional how to model the detail in the computer for manufacturing and cost estimating purposes. Admittingly, this is a generic example to prove a point, but over the course of a few hours the profession has benefited from two individuals gaining two new skills which, when utilized, will continue to replicate upon itself for the benefit of all. This example specially looks at the skill set benefit of internship, and doesn't even begin to examine the social gain from this relationship. Beginning immediately, internship should have nothing to do with unit counting or signatures and everything to do with creating a mutually beneficial and educational relationship among all professionals.

Yes, the mechanisms we use in our internship toolbox need to be sharpened and regreased, but maybe we need to add some new tools. So, if you want to sit and argue about what's in that toolbox or how many units I need or who should be allowed to be my mentor, fine. But I've got thirty years left in this profession, if I'm lucky, and I'm going to spend it proclaiming the inherent value in emerging and seasoned professionals each picking up a toolbox and shaping the other's professional career.