Designed to assist students in understanding the opportunities and challenges of working within a startup or early-stage company.
Students engage in short work assignments with the selected student (and recent graduate) start-up teams, gaining firsthand experience in working with challenges typically faced by start-ups. In turn, participating student (or recent graduate) start-ups gain the help of top-notch students with complementary skills to their team makeup while learning what it takes to onboard a new team member.
“[These interns] helped us out a ton and made great contributions to the development of our platform.”
– Adam Ryason Ph.D. '14, '20 Founder, Intelligent Medicine
Hear more from Adam
"[internship] was such a unique, interesting experience for me because it had been a dream of mine to work at a startup and do something meaningful and meaningfully contribute to something bigger picture."
- Anuj Swaminathan '23, student intern at Vara Safety
Hear more from Anuj
Students Seeking Internships
If this program is of interest to you, please contact the Center Director to discuss the possibilities.
Startups Seeking Interns
In order to qualify, teams must be in the start-up phase, and ready to expose students to meaningful work in the world of entrepreneurship.
If your company could benefit from this program, please contact the Severino Center Director.
| Student startup (pre-revenue) | recent alumni startup | |
|---|---|---|
| Students | Any Rensselaer student with a minimum of one semester of coursework completed is eligible to be hired | |
| Compensation | Hourly wage | Up to $3,500 per hire with an equal match by the company |
| Timing | Up to 13 weeks | |
| Hours/week | Five to 20 hours per week while a FT student or up to 40 hours per week on an off semester | |
| Additional student requirements | Meetings with Center staff | |
Hiring International Students
International students on F, J, M, O, visas do not pay Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes on their income as long as they have accumulated less than five years of physical presence in the U.S. during their lifetime.
The 183-day rule for being treated as a resident does not apply as long as students do not intend to stay or do not stay longer than one year. So, in this situation, students would be exempt from taxes on capital gains unless they were to be here one year or more and would be taxed as a non-resident otherwise. Again, as long as students have not accumulated five or more years of physical presence within the United States, they do not have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes.
However, students will still have to pay state and federal taxes for employment income and for income affectively connected with US sources or business activities.
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