We encourage students to seek out their own internship opportunities. Each semester, many of our students earn internship credit by working with political campaigns, local government agencies, non-profits, and law offices. These are enriching experiences, and we are delighted when our students earn credit towards their degree with this type of work.
Watch the video below for an example of the experiences our students find with these types of internships.
VIDEO
Simply working at a job, even a professionally enriching job, does not necessarily contribute to a liberal-arts education. On-site supervisors can teach the skills needed to carry out necessary tasks, but there’s no guarantee that supervisors will encourage interns to look beyond the job at hand and contemplate how it fits within the student's overall academic curriculum.
Our internship course, PS 399 (sample syllabus here ), provides students with an opportunity to embed early work experiences within the liberal-arts education they are pursuing. To earn credit, students not only must serve in a job with some connection to Political Science, they also must read a modest amount of social-science scholarship related to the internship. They communicate regularly with the Internship Director or another Faculty Sponsor within the Political Science department – sometimes to seek advice or guidance, sometimes just to share their progress, but always with the expectation that they will show they are thinking abstractly or scientifically about the job and its techniques. And at the end, they write a reflective paper connecting their job(s) to the scholarly readings. Thus, in addition to (1) exhibiting the skills learned on the job and (2) documenting that they have gained abstract knowledge about the topical area in which they are working, the course has a third beneficial outcome, which is that students (3) show that, as professionals, they can perform a job successfully yet still think critically about the work they are performing.
Step 1: Finding the Internship. The Political Science Department typically lacks the resources to find internships for undergraduates (aside from the research internships that students sometimes coordinate with our own faculty, as explained below). Students who wish to enroll in PS 399 first must line up work that will qualify under the program. Discretion ultimately rests with the Internship Director, but in general the student’s employment must include substantial exposure to political, governmental, or legal institutions, and much of the work must involve some level of learning or individual discretion (rather than, for example, simply photocopying, stapling and/or delivering documents). Students receiving internship credit usually take paid or unpaid employment with one of the following:
government agencies (whether local, state, or federal, including legislative staff)
political parties or campaign organizations
interest groups or other policy-related organizations (e.g., non-profit research)
judicial institutions (whether local, state, or federal)
law firms and other legal organizations (e.g. county attorney’s office)
the news media if primarily writing on government or politics
If you’re unsure of where to start your internship search, visit handshake to search internships available for University of Kentucky students. Students may also contact the Internship Director at psintern@uky.edu for advice on finding an internship.
Step 2: Contact the Internship Director . Prior to formal approval of the internship (step 3 below), students should contact the Internship Director at psintern@uky.edu to provide initial information about the potential internship. Students should answer the following questions in their email:
What are the start and end dates of your internship?
What is the name of the organization you will be interning for?
What will your duties be in your internship and, briefly, describe how the work will connect to the Political Science major?
How many hours a week will you average at your internship?
How many hours total will you work during the semester?
What is the name and contact for your supervisor?
The Internship Director will respond promptly with advice and support about how to best move forward. Students should not proceed to Step 3 until they have heard back from the Internship Director.
Step 3: Securing Formal Support of the Internship Director (step 3a) and the Internship Supervisor (step 3b)
Step 3a: Formal Support from the Internship Director[1] . The Internship Director is in charge of the academic side of the internship. To secure formal support for the internship, students must complete and submit a Learning Contract Form (here ). This contract lays out the academic requirements for PS 399 coordinated between the student and the Internship Director. These requirements will typically include (1) ongoing communication, (2) required readings, and (3) a final paper. See the sample syllabus (here ) for a more thorough explanation of these requirements.
Step 3b: Formal Support from the Internship Supervisor . While the Internship Director is in charge of the academic side of the internship (as explained in Step 3a above), the Internship Supervisor is the person in charge of the job duties that the intern performs at the internship. This person will usually be someone who is in charge of the office where you will intern, such as the office manager. In addition to the Learning Contract coordinated with the Internship Director above, students must also complete a Memorandum of Agreement (here ) with the Internship Supervisor.
Once students have completed Learning Contract (Step 3a) and Memorandum of Agreement (Step 3b), they should submit them to the Internship Director. Submissions will be made via Canvas no later than within the first two weeks that classes start.
Step 4: Signing Up for the Course . Students may earn up to six (6) credit hours in PS 399 during a given semester, for a total of no more than 12 credit hours of the 120 required to graduate.[2] The number of possible credits in a given semester depends on how many hours the student will be working at the internship, as well as on the scope of the academic work the student is willing to perform. See the sample syllabus (here ) for a table that provides guidance on how many credits students should expect for their internship.
Once the Internship Director has approved the student’s proposal, s/he will provide an override that allows the student to enroll in PS399.
Step 5: Exit Evaluation . Internship Supervisors will be asked to provide an evaluation for each student at the end of the term, and students cannot pass the course without either (a) achieving a favorable evaluation or (b) receiving an official waiver from the Internship Director. It is the student’s responsibility to provide the Internship Supervisor with the Exit Evaluation Form (here ). As noted in the form, the Internship Supervisor may return the form directly to the Internship Director or give it to the student for submission.
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[1] Note that students may secure sponsorship from another faculty member in lieu of the Internship Director to supervise the academic component of internships. This commonly happens when a faculty member’s research overlaps with the content of the internship (e.g., our Judicial Politics faculty commonly sponsor internships for students working at legal offices). In most cases, however, the Internship Director guides internships.
[2] Note that internships do not always accommodate the semester’s academic calendar. As long as a majority of the hours on the job take place during the regularly scheduled semester, the Internship Director may count work performed in the weeks before the session starts when determining the number of credit hours for which a student is eligible. (However, students who perform work in advance hoping to receive internship credit do so at their own risk, because the Department only gives formal approval to the Learning Contract and planned course of study when the semester gets underway.) Similarly, if the student can afford to take a temporary "I"ncomplete grade at the end of the semester, the Internship Director has the discretion to count work hours completed after the semester's grades are due. Either way, the student still must complete the academic course requirements necessary to earn such credit before a grade may be entered.
