Fall and Spring Semester and Summer Session

The Internship Program allows students to earn course credit while gaining valuable professional experience as an intern in the Chicago area. A wide variety of internship opportunities await the motivated student, including positions with:

• Congressional and state legislative offices
• City, county, and state government offices
• Political campaigns for national, state, and local offices
• Nonprofit organizations, such as the Civic Federation
• Public Defender's Office; State's Attorney Office

The internship program represents a special opportunity to:

• Apply classroom knowledge to a professional work environment
• Gain valuable professional experience that will look great on a resume
• "Test the waters" of a specific professional area of interest

Requirements

Students must have completed their freshman year and have a cumulative grade point average of 2.5 or higher to be interns, but participation in the internship program does not require a political science major or minor. Transfer students are eligible to participate in the internship program.

Work hours are arranged with the internship supervisor depending on the intern's schedule and the needs of the host organization. The intern is also required to take part in special mandatory internship seminar sessions that meet during the semester. The intern's final grade is based on the quality of a written paper, a weekly e-journal, the evaluations of the internship supervisor at the host institution, and participation in the internship seminar sessions.

Summer Session students are eligible to take part in Internships in their hometown or other locations (as well as the Chicago area), with approval and permission of the Internship Director.

Course Credit

Interns enroll in PLSC 370 for either 3 or 6 credit hours, working for either 8 or 16 hours per week during the Fall or Spring, or a total of 120 or 240 hours over the course of the summer.

Only 3 hours of PLSC 370 can count toward the Political Science major or minor (the course, or 3 credit hours, counts as an elective Political Science course). If a student repeats PLSC 370, or takes it for more than 3 credit hours, those additional hours count toward general university credit, for which there is no university limit.

The one exception to the 3-credit maximum for PLSC credit is if a student enrolls in Loyola's Washington DC program, including the Washington DC-based PLSC 370 course, for which an additional 3 hours of PLSC 370 will be counted toward the PLSC major or minor (i.e., the course, or 3 credit hours, will count as a second elective Political Science course). Successful completion of a Political Science internship course will fulfill the Engaged Learning Core Requirement.

How To Apply

For more information about the Internship Program and to apply, please contact Professor Alex Grigorescu at agrigor@luc.edu.