English

Internships

The English Department encourages all of its B.A. majors to pursue internships. The advantages are numerous: internships enable you to apply your reading and writing skills to real workplace situations, make informed decisions about your career plans, and build valuable contacts. Our students have completed an exciting array of internships – in publishing, broadcasting, event planning, marketing, public relations, journalism, social media, political campaigns, legal research, environmental advocacy, and more – both on and off campus.

Maybe you know exactly what you want to do after you graduate—or maybe you have no clue. An internship can help you explore a professional area to help you make such decisions, to help you test how you apply your reading and writing skills in work situations, and to allow you to build professional connections. Most important perhaps, completing an internship tops the list of what employees weigh heavily in hiring recent graduates (according to the Chronicle of Higher Education and American Public Media’s Marketplace Study, December 2012). If you’re in a major or minor English Department program, you will be eligible for an internship, once you have earned 80 credits. You owe it to yourself and your future to investigate the many possible internship experiences the English department makes available to its majors. Here are just a few of the internships our majors have done in recent years:

Internship Coordinators

 

Getting Started

Before meeting with the appropriate internship coordinator listed above, be sure to explore the many internship possibilities available to you by:

1. reviewing the internship section of the English Majors Forum on D2L;
2. visiting WCU's Twardowski Career Development Center, and, if possible;
3. researching a business or organization you might like to intern for.

Once you've done this homework, you can then meet with the internship coordinator to discuss your options.

Internship Policies & Procedures

(requirements to fulfill before you begin your internship)

Any student seeking an English internship must be in the process of completing either a Major or a Minor in the English Department. In addition, the student will be permitted to undertake an internship under the supervision of the English Department only after he or she has met all of the following requirements:

1. Accumulated at least 80 semester hours.
2. Completed at least 12 semester hours in courses in the English Major or an English Minor.
3. Met with his or her advisor to obtain information about internship eligibility.
4. Met with the appropriate internship coordinator (see contact information above) to discuss the student's internship plans, search, and application materials. The student should come to this meeting with a draft resumé and two writing samples (the samples may be academic papers or other written work that the student is particularly proud of).
5. Submitted the completed Internship Agreement form, with all signatures, to his or her faculty supervisor by the specified deadline. (The faculty supervisor will then submit the form to Dr. Shevlin.) Fall and Summer internship forms are due by the end of the Spring semester. Spring semester internship forms are due by the end of the Fall semester. No student will be registered for ENG 395—the official course designated for internships—until the completed form has been submitted.

Any exceptions to these terms must be approved by the appropriate internship coordinator listed above.

Internship Action Sequence

Please note the established sequence of actions for the internship program:

1. Qualifying students must first apply for the internship (see steps above).
2. Upon approval and submission of completed paperwork, students will be registered for the internship under the course designation ENG 395. The internship sections are typically created by the English Department scheduler about two weeks before the start of the spring or fall semester. The scheduler will enroll you in ENG 395 when he or she creates the course for you. You should check your schedule before the semester starts to ensure that ENG 395 is showing up on your course list and that it reflects the proper number of credits.
3. Students then will do the internship.

Please also note that no internships will be retroactively approved. In other words, you can't first do the work and then apply to have it count as an internship.

Additional Rules Regarding Internships

1. A student may complete no more than 12 total credit hours of internship credit over the course of his or her undergraduate career.
2. Any student who wishes to take more than 9 hours of internship credit in a single semester must obtain approval from the internship coordinator and submit an application and an academic transcript (all in the semester preceding the internship).
3. The number of credits to be earned during an internship will be determined by the internship coordinator by applying a ratio of 40 hours of work for each hour of academic credit (for example, a student who worked 120 hours would receive three credit hours).
4. The internship credits for English majors shall be applied to the 18-credit "Minor, Concentration, or Department Electives" section of the student's advising sheet; students should consult with their academic advisor for guidance.
5. Students shall attend 3 of the 6 workshops offered jointly by the English Department and Career Center.
6. It is the student's responsibility to demonstrate that he or she has met the academic requirements for an internship.

Internship Work Requirements

(to be fulfilled during the actual internship)

The minimum requirements for work performed during an internship are as follows:

1. Interns must perform the required number of hours doing contracted tasks at the internship site.
2. Interns must maintain regular contact with their faculty internship advisor, meeting at least three times over the course of the semester.
3. Interns must maintain a collection of samples of their work throughout the internship.
4. Interns must confer regularly with their on-site internship supervisor.
5. At the end of the internship, interns must submit a portfolio of their work to their faculty supervisor and an analytical report (5-7 pages, minimum 1,300 words) detailing the internship experience, including what the student learned and gained from it. (Note: Business & Technical Writing Minors should consult with their Minor advisor for specific requirements regarding their portfolio.)