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ABSTRACT Articulating clear and achievable expectations is fundamental to both education and organizational management. In this article, we provide a simple intervention for clarifying expectations–and establishing that these expectations have been understood–which proved beneficial both to community college interns and to their internship mentors in biotech-related undergraduate research experiences. Internship mentors were asked to utilize a simple Expectation Clarity Tool to outline the expectations, success metrics, baseline assessments, and training strategy and support that would be foundational to their intern’s project. These included expectations around conceptual, technical, performance, and professional skills and behaviors. Concurrently, but independently, community college interns were asked to complete the same type of exercise as a way of identifying gaps in their knowledge and understanding of their mentor’s expectations and their internship project. The mentor’s completed Expectation Clarity Tool was then shared with their intern. As a result of completing this relatively simple intervention, the majority of mentors reported that it increased their confidence as a mentor, taught them a new mentoring skill, changed how they will mentor trainees moving forward, and positively impacted their relationship with their trainee. On the intern side, the majority of interns reported that engaging in this intervention, both as an independent exercise and in obtaining their mentor’s completed Expectation Clarity Tool, increased their confidence as an intern and positively impacted the success of their internship. 

Biotech-Careers.org is a comprehensive career information resource used in college and high school classrooms nationwide. The site combines education materials and job search capabilities with an extensive employer database. We describe four paths for exploring Biotech-Careers.org–People, Places, Things, and Jobs and describe the impacts of using the site on multiple cohorts of college students. The students reported an increased interest in pursuing biotechnology-related careers and an increase in cognitive factors (awareness, belonging, self-efficacy, and identity) known to be important in career choice.