Students requesting waivers must adhere to the following deadlines:

For waiver requests where the course is to be taken in the Fall semester, students must submit the request no later than April 15th of the immediately preceding semester (for example, a waiver request for Fall 2011 must be made no later than April 15, 2011).

For waiver requests where the course is to be taken in the Spring semester, students must submit the request no later than November 15th of the immediately preceding semester (for example, a waiver request for Spring 2012 must be made no later than November 15, 2012).

Failure to follow these deadlines will result in an automatic denial of the waiver requests.  If students cannot wait until a later semester to make the request then they will be required to take the full internship experience (3-units) regardless of prior experience. 

Planning Your Internship

Ultimately, establishing an internship experience that is valuable to you and also one that meets the requirement of the MPP program is an interactive process between the student and internship director.  To allow for the most valuable internship experience possible, the following guidelines are suggested:

First, explore what is out there.  Reach out into the community in the areas that interest you to see if you can find an experience you would enjoy.  If you are having difficulty, you should contact the internship coordinator (Chad McGuire: cmcguire@umassd.edu) for help and to develop your ideas.  This should be done well before the semester you are planning to take your internship. 

Second, once you have a possible connection for an internship, make sure the specific 'project' you plan to engage in during the semester meets the internship requirements of the program.  You should ensure the expectations between yourself and your sponsor for the internship are aligned.  You should also make sure these expectations meet the requirements of the program, and this is where involving the internship coordinator in the final agreement between you and your agency makes sense. 

The Internship Experience

The actual internship will be divided into two parts: the experiential component (actually engaging in the internship experience), and a seminar component where you will interact with your fellow classmates also interning during the semester.  The specific details of the experiential component (required if not waived) will be determined by agreement between your host entity and the internship coordinator.  The seminar component will take place mainly in an online interactive environment where you will have specific readings to link your internship experience to your academics in the public policy program, as well as larger connections between your work and civic engagement.  There are monthly discussion posts required in the seminar component of the course, as well as a final report that is due at the end of the semester.  Part of the final report may be helpful to students in preparing their summary statement for their portfolio presentation