Internships can be a valuable part of an undergraduate or graduate curriculum. Political Science students have taken internships in a wide variety of positions, a sample of which follows:
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Local Government, California
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Attorneys Offices, Private Firms
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U.S. Congress
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Legislature, State of California
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Civic Education/Private Organizations
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Superior Court, State of California
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Election Campaigns
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U.S. Federal Government
If interested in an internship as part of your overall education, please contact the Political Science Internship Coordinator, Dr. Fabián Borges, at <Fabian.Borges@csusb.edu> or (909) 537-7633.
The internship courses are PSCI 5751 (1-unit), PSCI 5752 (2-unit), and PSCI 5753 (3-unit). Once you contact the internship coordinator and you receive permission to enroll in the course, you will receive course credit upon successful completion of your internship. Please see the forms below for more information, which include:
For graduate students, if possible, you should attempt to obtain an internship during the summer or academic year. The most productive internships are paid internships with federal agencies, but be advised that they are difficult to acquire. Also, because they usually require security clearances, the application deadline is usually in late October or early November. Each agency runs its own internship program; not only is there not a single U.S. government center for internships, there is not, for example, a single Defense Department center for internships. Graduate students pursuing internships should therefore expect to file numerous applications - perhaps ten or twenty for a given summer. Summer internship applications for the national security agencies are generally due by the end of October if not even earlier, as it takes many months even for an interim Secret-level clearance to be adjudicated. Some government agencies also offer unpaid internships; clearly, these are not as competitive. In addition, many state and local governments, NGOs, research institutes, and corporations maintain internship programs. Terms, application deadlines, conditions of service, and pay (if any) vary widely.