Internship

Internship is the most valuable experience for any degree program. Especially if you are in public administration or policy program and you don no that have public sector experience; internship I would say is mandatory. First, public sector works differently than private sector and it’s not sufficient to read about it in the text books but the real life experience is helpful in understanding the theory. Secondly, an internship is also helpful for a future job prospects with organization you did an internship with and also helps with the other organizations. Even if it’s an internship which is not exactly a job, you still get the experience where you get a little insight to the public sector or non profit work culture.

Well to land up with a good internship the key is start early. Many good organizations have application deadline as early as December. So it’s helpful to start looking for one since October. (At least I did) You have to decide what kind of work experience you are looking for. Does a specific organization attract you? (local government, federal government, PPIC, Cato Institute etc) or are you looking for particular skill to learn while working (budgeting, performance measurement, communications, survey research etc) Focusing on “what I want” will help to think and visit the websites of the organizations you are interested in.

Many of the famous research organizations have applications in a specific format. The prospective employers may ask you to write about a specific policy issue or submit research /policy analysis work along with resume and cover letter. Read the instructions carefully or you may end up not sending the complete application (You may send something later on but this may mean that you are not careful enough to begin with) Most of the employers will ask for 2 or 3 references. Depending upon your academic and professional background think about the appropriate references. If you applying for budgeting internship giving the reference from the budget class might be useful. Of course you need to request this in advance. My experience is all the SPA faculty members are more than helpful when a student is seeking an internship.

Not all internships are paid. If getting paid matters it’s advisable to look for certain internships. Unfortunately, in this case some good opportunities pass by.

Where to find them? SPAN is a great resource for these internship opportunities. Also you can contact the career services. If you have friends or family working in some particular place of interest do not hesitate to inquire about the opportunities there.

Once you receive the internship letter, you still have to do formalities such as registering to the appropriate course, getting paperwork done with HR in the organization etc. Especially if you are an international student, I would strongly suggest contacting International Students Office as soon as possible. International students need to apply for CPT and it’s helpful to get all the paperwork done at least 2/3 weeks before the internship start date. This may sound like a big buffer, but given the kind of paperwork needs to be submitted in different administrative offices, earlier the better. You will get all the support from SPA staff, so you do not have to worry about it at all. But the other units may not be as quick as SPA.
Once you are done with all these chores you are all set to land your new job and learn great many things about practice.