Description
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies majors and minors can gain pre-professional experience and put feminist or queer theory into action by taking part in internships. Up to 3 units of credits per semester, with a total of 6 internship credits applicable to total graduation credits, can be earned for unpaid internship work. Since internships are pass/fail, the course credit cannot be applied toward the WGSS major.
Examples of recent internship sites include both local settings (ALIVE, a domestic violence organization, Missouri NARAL, PROMO) and national organizations (NOW, Feminist Majority Foundation, and Transparent).
Eligibility
Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Internships are available to majors or minors who have completed at least 6 hours of coursework in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Arranging Internships
There are several pathways that one could take to set up an internship. If you already volunteer for an organization and want to earn credit, set up a time to discuss expectations and your internship timeline with Amy Cislo, Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies. If you are exploring the idea of an internship for the first time, the Center for Career Engagement can help you identify your interests and search for an opportunity. Set up your Handshake profile to discover internship opportunities and meet with a career coach to ask questions, talk about internship search strategies, and practice interviewing.
Prior to the beginning of the internship, students must complete the Learning Agreement.
The form requires signatures from the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies internship coordinator (or faculty sponsor) and the internship site supervisor. You must submit a completed Learning Agreement to your faculty sponsor no later than two weeks after your internship begins.
Credit
Students who have arranged internships should register for L77 299, section 01 (Cislo), unless special arrangements are made for another section. This is a pass/no pass course. The number of credits received is based on the number of hours worked:
- 3 credits: a minimum of 135 hours of unpaid work
- 2 credits: a minimum of 90 hours of unpaid work
- 1 credit: a minimum of 45 hours of unpaid work
In addition to completing the hour requirement, you must work a minimum of eight weeks to earn three credits or a minimum of six weeks to earn one or two credits.
The College of Arts & Sciences does not allow internship credit to count toward your major or minor or any advanced unit requirements.
Academic Component
In addition to the hours worked, students must turn in within a month of completing their internship an 8-10-page paper that addresses the following issues:
- Write an overview/personal narrative of your internship. Consider this paper a kind of evaluative analysis of your experience.
- Begin with description of your organization. What is its purpose? Does it have a mission statement? How large an establishment is it? How is it funded? Who is served? In what way is gender or sexuality addressed? Does the organization address intersectionality? Does the mission statement include recognition of diversity and if so, how does the organization address diversity? What did you think of the leadership? Did you come away from this experience more or less enthusiastic about this organization?
- Next consider your function within this organization. What were your duties/responsibilities? What kind of supervision did you have? What did you learn about gender, feminism, and/or society? How did your education help or hinder you in your success as an intern? Was there a gap between what you learned in the classroom and the practical application of those concepts? Finally, would you recommend this internship to another student? Why or why not?
- These questions are not meant to be prescriptive, but rather to get you to think about your experience in both a personal way and within a broader scholarly and policy context. Feel free to be as laudatory or as critical as you want, but be mindful of offering reasons for your positive and negative criticisms. If you have any suggestions about the ways the internship might be better, both from the individual and the organizational perspectives, please include them.
- Include a minimum of 2-3 sources in your discussion of your internship. You will probably want to utilize readings from women gender and sexuality studies courses you have taken or you may use new material. Or, if necessary, you may need to do additional reading. In other words, there should be an academic/scholarly aspect to your reflections. You should include a bibliography which lists your sources. Please use proper formatting; Chicago, MLA, or APA styles are all acceptable.
- In order to write this paper, you should keep a daily journal. In addition to encouraging you to think about the final project, daily journal writing will help you track changes in your thinking about your internship and remind you of various challenges and successes. While you will not need to submit your journal, it is a useful tool in completing the written aspect of your internship.
- For fall or spring internships, the paper is due by the first day of finals. For summer internships. The paper is due by the first day of fall classes. Summer internship grades will be posted at the end of fall semester. Unless someone else is supervising your internship, all papers should be uploaded to Professor Cislo’s Internship Canvas Course.
More information about internships can be found at https://college.artsci.wustl.edu/policies-procedures.
NOTE: You must find a faculty sponsor, complete the Internship Learning Agreement, and register for course credit prior to beginning your internship. It is important for learning objectives, expectations, and requirements to be set at the beginning of an internship. Therefore, credit cannot be awarded retroactively.
