The intern will have a deliberate learning agenda going into the experience and will make plans for accomplishing this agenda. Internships for credit accomplish this by requiring a learning contract. It is recommended that students completing non-credit bearing internships use a similar process. This will help to ensure that the internship site is aware, and supportive of the intern's learning agenda. The intern will actively reflect on what they are learning throughout the experience.
Active reflection is absolutely critical in an internship.
Without this reflection one tends to learn things in an incidental way and not integrate experience into what they already know. When one tries to fit new experience into what they already know they accomplish the deep and meaningful learning that internships are known for. For-credit internships accomplish this by requiring a learning journal and faculty contact. Non-credit interns are encouraged to keep a learning journal also. This helps the intern to assess their progress toward learning goals, helps them to articulate questions that they develop and answers that they find, and encourages them to do the deep thinking that generates new learning.