Internships

So you want to do an internship...

The Internship Class is intended to allow students to gain hands-on experience while addressing academic and personal interests relevant to the field of environmental science. Students volunteer as interns for 12 weeks (a minimum of six hours each week) on a specific project at a host organization, department or agency. The internship is guided and evaluated by a supervisor at the host organization and the course instructor at Dalhousie University. Each student will be asked to reflect on their internship and make a presentation at the end of the term.

Procedures Before the Internship Semester

Initial Contact

• The student must contact the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator (envs.internship@dal.ca) with their interest in enrolling in ENVS 3000.03 at least 6 weeks before the term in which she/he wishes to commence a placement
• The student and Environmental Science Internship Coordinator will then meet (in person or electronically) to determine the student’s eligibility for the course and internship interests
  

Determination of Placement

• In the case where a student has an internship placement in mind, the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator will review the potential placement with the student in order to determine the appropriateness of the placement.
• In the case where a student does not have a specific internship placement in mind, the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator will put the student in touch with a potential sponsoring agency based on his/her interests.
  

Establishing Details of Internship

• The student works with the potential sponsoring agency and the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator to determine (a) the nature of the internship, and (b) the most appropriate supervisor at the agency
• The student takes the responsibility for completing and getting the appropriate signatures for the Environmental Science Internship (see attached form)

Procedure During the Internship Semester

• The student will submit the signed Environmental Science Internship contract form within 2 weeks of the beginning of the semester.
• The student will work as an intern for 12 weeks (at a minimum of 6 hours per week) on a specific project within the sponsoring agency. 
• The student will submit weekly journal entries to the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator through Brightspace
• The student will complete all assignments related to the course within a reasonable time (as detailed in the course syllabus)

The Environmental Science Student Internship is designed:

• To give a student a meaningful opportunity to gain experience in the field of environmental science in a supervised learning context
• To give a student an opportunity to work on a specific project related to the field of environmental science.
• To give a student an opportunity to reflect on practice and to present lessons learned at the end of the term

Students work as interns for 12 weeks (at a minimum of 6 hours per week) on a specific project within your organization.  The student will receive guidance from you as the sponsoring agency supervisor, as well as the Environmental Science Internship Coordinator at Dalhousie University.

We appreciate the opportunity to partner with your organization and hope that this arrangement will be mutually beneficial. Please contact the Dalhousie Environmental Science Internship Coordinator should you have any questions about the Environmental Science Program or this internship course either by phone: 902.494.7117 or email: envs.internship@dal.ca.

Students have taken on internships since 2005 with a variety of organizations. The table below lists some examples of past interns and their projects: