Institute for Field Education

Internship Placement

The IFE mission-driven academic internship

All organizations which host IFE interns understand several key points:

 This is a trans-cultural experience for both parties.

 An IFE student is well prepared in general for the internship and will be ready to take on some responsibility after a short period of adaptation.

 The student intern is to be included as part of a working team, interacting on a regular basis with other members of the team.

 Hosting an intern requires a commitment of time and space to make sure the internship is a structured learning experience.

The individual placement strategy

At the core of the IFE model, the placement strategy for each enrolled student is put into place by IFE and the admitted student several months upstream of the start date of the program. The process begins with the “placement form” filed as part of the application for admission. This form provides applicants an opportunity to delineate what they hope to gain from the IFE Field Study and Internship semester as well as to describe their relevant background, skills and any other ideas they
may have for the internship (such as type of organization).

In any semester, as many as one-third of IFE students hold internships that have been arranged by IFE for the first time, despite scores of host organizations already known to IFE — but not appropriate for specific student projects.

Types of organizations, range of fields

No two student interns are exactly alike, and IFE works with a broad variety of organization types to ensure a good fit between an intern and the work environment. Government ministries, agencies, not-for-profits, schools, research centers, foundations, corporations, cultural institutions, laboratories, NGO’s, small firms and partnerships, media organizations, are some of the organizational categories in which IFE student interns go to work.

Variety also results from IFE’s commitment to placing students as close to the heart of their chosen interest as possible. A typical IFE student group may include students of art history and museology, physics, international relations with a range of area interests, social and cultural anthropology, sociology and social work, peace studies, French and Francophone literature, economics, English or comparative literature, contemporary art and markets, architecture, biology and pre-medicine or public health, marketing, many types of engineering, mathematics for the social sciences, fashion, public policy, urban studies, Romance languages, management of organizations and still other fields. Learn more about past student placements.

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