Internships

An internship is work in the community for which you receive academic credit. In Women and Gender Studies, we strongly encourage students to do an internship at some point during their academic career. Previous students have found them an excellent way to find out what kind of work they might want to do after graduation and to make connections with community organizations and the people they serve.

Internships can be taken as WGSI 29800. A Women and Gender Studies faculty member must agree to sponsor and oversee the internship. Students interested in internships should contact one of the Women and Gender Studies advisers.

How Internships Work:

Undergraduate students may take up to 6 credit hours of internship work. These can be taken only as Credit/No Credit. To receive 3 credit hours in one semester, students need to:

• Work 10-12 hours per week with the agreed upon organization.
• Write monthly summative memos describing the work. All work must be submitted to the supervising instructor. Memos should include a record of the hours worked and a description of activities.
• Write a final synthetic paper describing work during the semester, how it relates to Women and Gender Studies, and how it advances the student’s personal, political, academic and/or professional development. In this paper, students should include a section that describes the organization, how it is organized/run and its funding. The paper should be 3-5 pages in length.
• Submit a completed and signed copy of the “Women and Gender Studies Internship Contract.”

For those who wish to pursue fewer academic hours, the following rule applies:
1 credit hour = 4-6 hours/week
2 credit hours = 6-9 hours/week

All written requirements and procedures remain the same.

Students who are currently interning at an organization and wish to receive credit through Women and Gender Studies should fill out the Internship Contract Form, to be reviewed by the Department Chair, Catherine Raissiguier.

Signatures from the internship supervisor and Women and Gender Studies adviser are required to successfully submit the form.

Recommended process:

1. Fill out as much as possible on pages 1 and 2 of the form below.
2. Select the checkbox to save progress. Click the purple button to save the form.
3. Watch for an email with a link to resume filling out the form.
4. Meet with the internship supervisor and use the link to open the form on a phone or computer.
5. After getting the supervisor’s signature, select the checkbox to save progress. Click the purple button to save the form.
6. Do the same to get the instructor’s signature.
7. Submit the form.