Internships

Internships provide students with unparalleled opportunities to gain hands-on experience in a variety of real-world settings.  Under some circumstances, students may receive academic credit for government-related internships.  Internships require the approval both of the Office of Off-Campus Study and the Government Department.

To receive Jan-Plan credit for a January internship, students must work a minimum of 20 hours per week for four weeks and submit an analytical journal to the faculty sponsor. 

The analytical journal should provide a reasonably detailed account of your work at the internship placement and demonstrate that you have reflected in some significant way about the experience.  The journal might, for example, explain what you have learned about the field in which you have been working, about the challenges the firm faces in its market or industry, about the problems and opportunities confronting the NGO or governmental agency with which you worked.  Whatever the issues it addresses, the journal must demonstrate serious reflection about your internship experience.

At the completion of any internship for which credit is being sought, the student must arrange for the internship supervisor to write a letter to the faculty coordinator that describes the nature and amount of the work performed and evaluates the student's performance. Credit cannot be awarded unless the internship supervisor confirms that the student has worked the requisite number of hours and has performed satisfactorily in the placement.

It can be possible to earn academic credit for an independent study related to an internship placement, but to earn academic credit, you must write an analytical paper comparable to what you would submit for an on-campus independent study in addition to an analytical journal as described above.  The Department has established the following guidelines for receiving academic credit for internships:  1 Credit — a minimum of 50 hours of work and a 10 page analytical paper; 2 Credits — a minimum of 100 hours of work and a 15 page analytical paper; 3 Credits — a minimum of 150 hours of work and a 25 page analytical paper. 

Other than the semester-long internship required by the Colby in Washington program, no internship may  be counted towards the ten courses required for the Government major.

The internships coordinator for 2006-2007 is Professor Reisert (x5316).