Your Cengage instructor has partnered with Extern to give you hands-on professional experience through your curriculum
Complete real projects and get live feedback from company brands you recognize as part of your Cengage coursework. Whether it’s for your capstone or career exploration—start building resume-ready experience now.
Why this matters
The entry-level job market has changed. Employers expect experience, but opportunities to gain it are shrinking. Cengage and Extern are working together to solve this problem by embedding professional experience directly into coursework so students don't have to wait just for summer or until after graduation to build the skills that matter.
No matter what background, GPA, or current experience, Extern is here to give anyone the opportunity to get professional experience in their fields of interest.
How these projects are designed
These virtual, fully remote projects are designed to fit your schedule and can be completed from anywhere. The experience includes guided online modules aligned with the project work, along with live sessions hosted by participating companies throughout the externship.
Projects are available across multiple industries and career areas, allowing students to build both soft and hard skills relevant to current workforce needs. Example projects include sustainability consulting engagements, venture capital investment memos, and game design.
Externships are typically 8–12 weeks in length and involve an estimated 5–10 hours of work per week. Participation is open to students in select courses regardless of GPA, major, or prior experience.
I'm using a Cengage course. How do I get access?
If your Instructor has enabled Extern, you'll see a direct link to explore available externships that align with your Cengage course.
What’s Waiting For You
Put the experience on your resume with big brand names you can point to and experience you can speak to in an interview.
Meet industry professionals and collaborate with peers from all around the world.
Learn through application the most in-demand tools and skills employers are looking for.
Showcase your project deliverables so you can show your peers and recruiters the experience you now have.
Extern will verify your experience if you meet the requirements of completion and act as a reference for recruiters.
Gain confidence as you learn about what actual projects look like in the real world and be more sure of the career you want to pursue.
Extern by the Numbers
Backed by data, powered by mentorship, loved by students.
Students Served — and growing fast
of externs get hired within 12 months
universities where students are externs
Work with the VP of Engineering at News Corp to design and pitch a Gen Z–focused feature for the NY Post app. Analyze users, prototype ideas, test with peers, and present a real product proposal.
Analyze video ads, uncover what works, and build a strategy. Then, turn your insights into a creative concept you can showcase in your portfolio - and present to the Global Consumer Insights team.
Turn data into insight. Explore the world of consumer analytics through hands-on projects in survey analysis, sentiment mining, and AI-powered data storytelling. Learn how to decode customer feedback, clean and analyze real-world data, and create dashboards and presentations that drive decisions.
Redesign mental health care from the inside out. Map workflows, spot risks, and build tools to make patient care safer, smarter, and more human.
In this hands-on externship with BeReal—the app redefining authenticity in social media—you’ll get an inside look at how product decisions get made. You’ll analyze user experiences, benchmark competitors like TikTok and Instagram, brainstorm and prototype new features, test them with peers, and pitch your final proposal. Whether you’re interested in product design, UX research, or strategy, this is your chance to work like a real PM and shape the future of a platform built for real moments.
Act like a VC Associate and identify high-potential Vertical AI startups. Get hands-on experience sourcing deals, analyzing markets, and writing compelling investment memos.
Rival Tableau-style visualizations—no data or design background needed. In this 6-week Canva externship, create interactive, AI-powered visuals for real business use. Top work gets featured by Canva + 3 months of Canva Pro, free.
Work with Amazon to analyze employee feedback, uncover patterns with Python + sentiment analysis, and deliver insights that drive ops strategy. Big-name experience. Real-world skills. Built for future analysts, consultants & strategists.
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Learn how VCs spot the next big tech startup. In this externship, you’ll discover how to find and evaluate early-stage companies, analyze markets, and create compelling investment memos. Perfect for those curious about startups or investing.
Build, hack, and defend real IoT infrastructure, then hand your security playbook to an actual company. You’ll launch realistic cyberattacks - from spoofing and replay to unauthorized shutoffs, and implement defenses like TLS and mTLS.
Dive into the fundamentals of equity research and financial modeling. Analyze a real public tech company, assess risk and competitive position, build valuation models, and present a full investment memo and pitch to an industry panel.
Learn content strategy from TikTok’s Head of Agency. Design viral-ready posts, build brand voice and visuals, and pitch a full campaign - all while building a standout portfolio.
What if AI could make sense of a 200-page mortgage blob faster than a human and actually do something useful with it? In this externship, you’ll train models to read, extract, and search real mortgage docs using Python, OCR, and RAG. It’s document intelligence meets automation and you’re the architect.
Build a data-driven sponsorship strategy for a real NASCAR team. You'll scrape race results, pull social engagement from Reddit and YouTube, and create a visibility scoring model that ranks sponsors by ROI—then present your recommendations to NY Racing leadership.
Analyze real e‑commerce data from Google Analytics, Meta Ads, and Shopify to uncover what drives clicks and sales. Learn to spot funnel drop‑offs, optimize marketing spend, and craft strategies that boost conversions and revenue.
