To receive academic credit for an internship, you can take the internship course offered through the Career Center or arrange an internship experience on your own.  Independent internships must include a minimum of 100 hours of work experience with an organization and a minimum of 15 hours of instructional time with an individual Political Science faculty member.

Identifying an Internship Location

The student is responsible for finding an internship.  When the department receives notices of internship opportunities from outside organizations, it posts the information on its website and hallway bulletin boards.  DePaul’s Career Center also keeps a file of internship opportunities.  In addition, students may do internships that they have identified on their own.

Federal and state legislators often offer internships.  For these you should contact your federal or state legislator’s office.  Most federal government departments and agencies have internship positions available, some in the Chicago area.  State government internships are more numerous and also more difficult to locate.  Generally, a fruitful approach to state, county, or city government internships is to ask your state representative, senator, or alderman if they can be of assistance in helping you obtain an internship or entry level position.  You should be sensitive to the partisanship of the person from whom you are requesting help.  Also, you probably should be a registered voter.  If you are not an active voter, you will likely be ignored.  Most nonprofit organizations are glad to have interns, though they can be difficult to identify.  Please contact the Political Science internship coordinator if you have any questions or need additional advice.

A Special Internship Program

The exception to the ordinary method of seeking an internship is to do an internship through the Catholic University Washington Internship program.  Students in that program take courses at Catholic University while doing an internship in the nation’s capitol.  Students interested in this program should contact Dr. Cathy May, who manages the program at DePaul. 

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Arranging for Academic Credit

To have an internship to bear credit toward the political science major, a political science professor must act as a supervisor.  The student must take the initiative to ask a professor to supervise the internship.  As a general rule, the supervising professor should be one who has expertise in the field of the internship.  The internship candidate can ask his/her academic advisor for assistance with finding a faculty member who has the appropriate expertise.

The job of the supervising professor is to ensure that the internship leads to learning about politics.   Internship credit is not given simply for doing a job somehow related to politics or government.  The student and the supervisor work out the details of the academic part of the internship.  This includes determining reading and writing assignments the student should do to supplement the internship work, as well as when and how and the student and professor will discuss experiential learning.

Once the student and professor have agreed on the nature of the internship experience, they complete an Independent Study  form and give it to the department chair for approval.

Students should understand that a professor may decline to supervise an internship because of time constraints.  It is important, therefore, for the student to begin the process of looking for an internship early and to be flexible in the kind of internship s/he seeks.

Resources:

Political Science Internship Coordinator:
Cathy May, 773-325-4755, Room 2112 in 990 West Fullerton

DePaul’s Career Center:
careercenter.depaul.edu
773-325-4339, SAC 192

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