Higher Education

Internships

Although internships are not required, approximately 3/4 of Harvard's higher education students work as interns during the course of their academic year, to acquire additional professional skills or to test possible new career directions. All internships are "custom designed" to ensure that they constitute graduate-level professional work in the student's area of interest. Some are at Harvard. Others take advantage of the large number of higher education institutions and higher education related organizations in the Boston area. Approximately 90% of internships are paid. HGSE's Field Experience Program (FEP) office maintains a large data base of internship sites. Students may also locate internships on their own or with the assistance of higher education faculty members.

Students can choose to receive academic credit for internships by enrolling in the course, the Higher Education Internship Seminar, led by Judith McLaughlin. This is a one-semester course, offered in both the fall and spring - students can choose to enroll in it for only one semester, or to take it for the full year. As part of this course, students are mentored by a supervisor at their job site and then meet regularly at HGSE in class sessions to reflect on their own professional development and to learn about the internship experiences of their higher education classmates.

In planning an internship, students should consider the following:

Scope: The best internships offer both depth and breadth. Students benefit from having a clearly delineated project or set of responsibilities, so that they can pursue this area in depth and have work that is their own. In addition, students' learning is enhanced by opportunities to become more knowledgeable generally about the professional area, to attend staff meetings, participate in conferences or other professional development programs, or to interview others in the office or institution.

Time Commitment: The internship should complement, not compete with, the student's course of study. Past students report that an internship of 8-10 hours a week is usually manageable, but commitments of much greater time can be difficult on top of the demanding Harvard course load. Arranging flexible hours to accommodate paper deadlines and exam dates is also desirable.

Internship Length: Some students will do an internship for one semester only; some students will work at one site during the first semester and a second site during second semester; others will remain at the same site for the entire academic year. In all cases, it is highly recommended that students do not commit to an entire year at the outset of the internship, in that it is far easier to "re-up" if the internship is going well than it is to disentangle from a full-year commitment if it turns out not to work out as anticipated.

Internship Examples

Internships at Harvard

In the 2006-2008 academic years, higher education students have worked at Harvard in the following offices:

• Harvard Business School:  Office of Development
• Harvard College:  Office of Admissions; Office of Career Services; Center for Public Interest Careers; Office of International Programs, Women's Center, Advising Programs Office, Office of Academic Programs, Office of Student Activities
• Harvard Graduate School of Education:  Student Alumni Mentoring Initiative, Alumni Affairs, Office of Admissions, Office of Student Affairs
• Harvard Kennedy School of Government: Faculty Research Intern
• Harvard School of Public Health:  Office of Admissions, Freshmen Dean's Office
  

Internships in the Boston area

In the 2006-2008 academic years, higher education students have worked in the Boston area in the following offices:

• Boston Higher Education Partnership
• Boston University: Pre-Professional Advising Office
• Bunker Hill Community College: International Center
• Cambridge College:  Office of Policy, Planning, Research, and Evaluation
• Consortium of the Fenway (COF), Boston:  Global Education Opportunities
• Eduventures Research and Consulting
• Emerson College: Office of Multicultural Affairs
  
• Isaacson, Miller Executive Search Firm
  Jobs for the Future: Making Opportunities Affordable
• Massachusetts Campus Compact
• MIT:  Office of Minority Education, Resident Life, Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE), Student Activities Office
• New England Board of Higher Education
• Pine Manor College: Dean of Student Retention Office
• TERI (The Education Resources Institute, Inc.): College Access Center
• Tufts University:  Office of Student Activities; Office of Institutional Research, Office of Admissions
• Urban College of Boston: President's Office