Graduate Career Development Center

Internships offer you the chance to experience an organization, a sector, a country, and more!  You have a chance for a "test drive" while gaining useful skills and meeting important network contacts.  Internships can be life changing opportunities that can convince you to continue in a certain career direction or make you decide to go in a different direction entirely.

Many internships are paid.  Many are unpaid.  Some offer a stipend of some kind.  Should you take an unpaid internship?  Often, the skills you would gain, the exposure you would have to another culture or society, or the people you would meet are very much worth it.  Please check with your program to see if funding is available to support an unpaid internship.

If you know an organization where you would like to intern, be mindful of deadlines.  Some organizations recruit up to nine months before the internship begins, particularly if the internship requires a security clearance.  To see examples of SFS students' summer internship experiences, click here.