Seminar: Students taking an internship for credit must attend the Internship
Seminar (V36.0800) and submit a learning contract 1 month before the semester
begins.
Learning Contract: The learning contract should include the following:
- Name, address, phone number, and email address for: you, the Environmental Studies Program Coordinator, and your internship site supervisor.
- Start and end date (totaling a minimum of 6 hours/week for one semester).
- Indicate that your internship is for academic credit at NYU as part of your major.
- The nature and detail of internship/tasks/skills (min. 1 paragraph).
- Intended learning goals, e.g. learning how a small scale non-profit works (min. 1 paragraph).
- How the internship relates to your course of study.
Final Paper: In 3-5
pages,
please reflect on your semester's internship and your success in
reaching
the learning goals spelled out in the learning contract. Please
include: (1) a detailed
description of the skills and insights you have acquired; (2) the most
helpful/useful part of the internship; (3) areas for improvement
(personally;
at the site; as it relates to your academic course of study); and, (4) how the internship
has/hasn't
informed your post-graduation plans and vision. The goal is more than
just
telling us what you did, but also reflecting on how you've learned from
your
site (including any insight on your own learning style and strengths),
what you
have have learned about how environmental projects are undertaken (and
how
environmental groups operate), and how you see this experience relating
to your
classroom-based understanding of environmental studies. Please
structure the
paper according to this numbering.
Final Presentation: In 10-15 minutes, please present the following:
(1)
your learning successes and areas for improvement this semester, (2)
questions
your internship has raised for your ES (and undergraduate) education
(including
the direction you hope to take after graduation), and (3) any insights
about
how environmental groups operate, succeed (or not), and their place in
resolving environmental problems. Also, as student
ambassadors to the
environmental community in NYC, we would like to know (1) how valuable
your
experience was to your undergraduate education, (2) what we can do to
improve
the internship experience for you, and (3) what the strengths and
weaknesses of
the site were (i.e., what kind of students should we send there in the
future?). And, as always, please feel free to send me any feedback at
all on
your internship experience - anything from reflections, sharing an
interesting
or awful experience or project, thoughts on your site-specific
experience, and
any advice you have for us on improving the internship experience.
Methods of Evaluation: The Program Coordinator will check on the intern
mid-semester and
by calling the intern supervisor to discuss the internship. Also, the intern will complete a final
project about the internship. Interns
will be assessed by the ES Program Coordinator, ES Program Director, and
the internship site supervisor, and through the completion of a midterm
and final paper and presentation.
Questions: If you have any questions,
please contact the Environmental Studies Program Coordinator at
environmental dot studies at nyu dot edu.