POLITICAL SCIENCE INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

PLSC 370 Summer 2003

Course Outline

Coordinator: Patrick Van Inwegen

e-mail: [email protected]	www.geocities.com/pvaninw
Office: Damen Hall 955a	Office Hours: by appointment
Office Phone: (773) 508-3064

Course Objectives:

The internship program is designed to achieve four objectives:

(1) Apply classroom knowledge to a professional work environment.

(2) Gain valuable professional experience that will look great on a resume.

(3) “Test the waters” of a specific professional area of interest.

(4) “Get a foot in the door” of a specific professional area of interest, perhaps leading to a permanent job.

Academic credit:

Interns enroll in PLSC 370 for 3 or 6 credit hours. All students must attend the monthly internship seminar. The level of other work is linked to the academic credits to be earned, as follows:

3 credit hours: 8-10 hours internship per week; 8-10-page research paper

6 credit hours: 16-20 hours internship per week; 16-20-page research paper

Specific work hours are arranged with the internship supervisors based on the intern’s schedule and the needs of the host organization. The internship period is May 19 to August 1, 2003.

Course Requirements:

Grades for the internship will be based upon the following items that are described below:

5% Monthly seminar attendance and participation

30% Bi-weekly email journal

30% Research paper

35% Internship performance and evaluation

Grading Scale:

90-100 A 70-75 C

86-89 B+ 66-69 D+

80-85 B 60-66 D

76-79 C+ 0-59 F

Monthly Seminars:

All students will attend the monthly internship seminars on the following dates in Damen Hall 966:

May 21, 4:30-5:30 pm

June 18, 4:30-5:30 pm

July 9, 4:30-5:30 pm

August 6, 4:30-5:30 pm (Final Evaluations & Paper due)

Monthly Seminars Participation:

All students will give a brief presentation on their host organization. This assignment is intended to give the other students an idea of what different organizations in the field of politics do. For this presentation, you should include the following information:

1. Host organization’s name.

2. What does the organization do?

3. What do you do to support what the organization does?

Each presentation will be different in what it includes and does not include. If you are interning in a government office, you should tell us what the purpose of that office is in general as well as the specifics of your office. For example, you may intern with a senator. Tell us the role of a senator as well as the role of your senator – what committees does he/she sit on, what is her/his platform, what are his/her objectives while in office? Presentations should be about five minutes long, but no longer than ten minutes and relatively informal. Questions and answers may be asked after the presentations. This assignment will be graded as part of your attendance grade – all or nothing. The presentations will be on February 12 and March 12 and will be assigned during the first meeting.

Email Journal:

Every two weeks interns will prepare a 1-2 page summary of their internship experience and work assignments. The journal should include both descriptive information (i.e. what you did) as well as reflective content (i.e. what do you think about the experiences of the past two weeks). You may also include your concerns about any aspect of the experience, but serious issues related to your work experience should be brought immediately to the attention of the coordinators and not be reserved until the bi-weekly journal report. The journal should be sent by email to [email protected] by the following dates:

May 28

June 11

June 25

July 2

July 16

July 30

Internship Performance and Evaluation

During the program, the coordinators will be in contact with your host organizations to learn about your performance. At the end of the internship, your supervisor at the host organization will complete an evaluation form on your performance. You and your supervisor will receive a copy of the evaluation form at the beginning of the internship period.

Research Paper:

Prepare a paper on a topic related to your internship. The paper should be on a political or policy issue that is relevant to your experience. The first part of the paper should review the academic writing that describes the nature of this political or policy area. The second part of the paper should be your assessment of how valid the literature is to your experience in the internship.

For example, if you are working on a political campaign, you may focus your paper on voter participation activities. In the first part of your paper, you would review what books and scholarly articles have said about how campaigns can mobilize voters for an election. In the second part of the paper, you would assess how well this is being done in the campaign in which you interned.

Or if you are working in a government official’s office, you might review the functions of office for a congressman and then compare those to the activities that you observed and in which you participated. Or you could write about a policy issue that you have researched for the office. If you are in an organization that provides a service to government agencies or to political refugees, you would compare the literature on the functions of these organizations to your experiences as an intern.

The paper is due on August 6.

Each paper should follow the format below:

A. Introduction and Overview of the Internship

B. Review of the Literature on the Topic

C. Discussion of the Research and Experience

E. Personal Assessment of the Internship

F. References

The length of the paper is based on the number of credits for which you are enrolled:

3 credit hours: 8-10 pages

6 credit hours: 16-20 pages

The paper should be double spaced with a one-inch margin and in a readable font. Please include a title page with your name, the title of your paper, the course name (Political Science 370) and my name.