INTERNSHIPS IN WOMEN'S and GENDER STUDIES

What's an internship?

Internships offer women’s studies students experience putting feminist theory into practice. Interns design and carry out a supervised project in an off-campus organization and reflect on their experience through the lens of gender. Projects may focus on research, direct intervention, education, or organization. Examples of organizations sponsoring women’s and gender studies studies internships include the following:

Abused Women’s Advocacy Project in Farmington and Rumford ,
Alice James Books
Children’s Task Force
Edgewood Manor
Feminist Majority Foundation,
Healthy Communities Coalition,
Maine Women’s Lobby
Orchard Park
Pathways
Sexual Assault Victims’ Emergency Services

What does an internship entail?

Developing a project with a supervisor from a community organization (the Center for Human Development offers useful training for internship interviews.  Also, they have an extended list of various internships.)

• Working on the project for up to 40 hours a week
• Reflecting in writing on your experience in the light of gender:
  The ideas and expectations you brought to the project
  The actual experience of the project–what you did; how that affected understandings and your sense of your agency in the world

Who’s eligible?
Students who have completed Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies (WST 101) and Contemporary Feminist Thought (WST 330)

What you’ll get out of an internship:

• Pre-professional experience in a field that interests you
• The chance to link your academic and "real world" lives
• The opportunity to develop your skills in researching/writing/teaching/organizing
• The chance to enrich other’s lives

How do you sign up?

4-12 credit internships (36 hours per credit) are available fall and spring semester and during the summer months. You will design a project with the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies and a field supervisor, then register for WST 396 Internship in Women’s and Gender Studies. Please note that several internships require that you make arrangements at least a month before the internship begins.

More Information?

Contact Alice Adams, Director of Women's and Gender Studies, at x7162 or alice.adams@maine.edu