Internships for Credit

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Internship Options

Many of Northwestern's affiliated study abroad programs provide students with the opportunity to do internships as part of their experience abroad. An internship provides undergraduate students with an opportunity to work in business, government, schools, non-profit organizations, etc. An internship may be undertaken as either:

  • An extracurricular activity (not for credit).
  • Part of a regular, for-credit course.
  1. Undertaking an Internship Abroad as an Extracurricular Activity (Not for Credit)
    Northwestern strongly encourages students to do an internship abroad as an extracurricular activity, in addition to taking a full load of courses. This is an excellent way to learn more about the host culture and language. Many of our affiliated study abroad programs can arrange these experiences. Consider using the experience as the basis for an independent study or research course after returning to Northwestern. If you are interested in this path, discuss it with your School Representative.
  2. Undertaking an Internship Abroad for Academic Credit
    Northwestern generally only allows students to enroll in credit-bearing internship courses that are part of our affiliated study abroad programs. If you have questions about this policy, please make an appointment to discuss it with the Associate Director of the Study Abroad Office (847-467-6400).

    Note to Medill students:
    Because of accreditation standards, Medill cannot award credit for any type of journalism internship outside the Journalism Residency Program unless the student receives prior approval from the Medill Director of Undergraduate Studies. This includes internship work in journalism (newspaper, magazine, radio, television, online), mass communications, public relations, advertising, and/or direct marketing. If you wish to complete other types of internships abroad in a field other than journalism, submit to the Medill undergraduate registrar a letter of support from the Northwestern University faculty member who will oversee your work as well as a syllabus for the internship.  Those materials will be reviewed by the Medill undergraduate registrar and, if need be, by the Academic Standards Committee, to determine what credit, if any, can be awarded.

Study Abroad Programs with Internship Options for Academic Credit

Normally, no more than one unit of Northwestern academic credit will be granted for an internship abroad. Affiliated study abroad programs that provide students with the opportunity to do an internship for academic credit as a part of their regular program offerings include:

Note: Some internship courses count as more than one course. For example, some internships at Melbourne count as two courses each. However, Northwestern will only grant a maximum of one course credit for an internship course taken abroad. This poses a conflict with the Northwestern Study Abroad requirement regarding course enrollment abroad, which states that all courses taken as part of a full course load must be transferable to Northwestern. Thus, if you plan to enroll in an internship course that counts as two courses, you must either have this requirement waived by the Study Abroad Office or else enroll in an extra course (an overload).

Prerequisites

To be eligible to do an internship abroad for Northwestern credit, you must first obtain official approval to study abroad. In addition, you must have:

  • One or more foundational classes taken at Northwestern that are related to the proposed internship;
  • Intermediate college language proficiency if the internship is in a country whose primary language is not English;
  • A Northwestern faculty adviser and school backing.

If you plan to do an internship abroad for academic credit, you must:

Internship Requirements

Northwestern will consider giving students credit for academic work done in conjunction with an internship abroad. To be considered for such credit, the internships upon which this work is based must meet the following conditions:

  • The internship must be unpaid.
  • The work must be primarily professional, hands-on experience in the principal activities of the organization (not clerical work, such as receptionist tasks).
  • Hours on the job, contact hours with a supervisor or professional staff member, and on-the-job requirements, such as oral presentations, formal written work, or exams, must be substantial enough to provide a meaningful learning experience.
  • You must engage in significant scholarly inquiry, either as part of the work experience itself or as a concurrent independent investigation. By "scholarly inquiry," we mean reading about and reflecting on important concepts, ideas, and methods being applied in the work setting. This includes reading a number of scholarly materials related to the internship work and/or to pertinent academic fields.
  • The scholarly components of your work must receive rigorous academic evaluation and a final grade or assessment documented by a university, college, or program transcript. The evaluation must be based on your written reports and/or oral presentations, including a final research paper in which you examine significant aspects of the field. The topic of the paper must be closely related to the topic of the internship and draw significantly on your internship experience.

While you are not required to do further work on your internship paper after return to Northwestern, it is the University's hope that students will use their final internship papers as a basis for undertaking more advanced study back on campus, in the form of a senior thesis, independent study, or graduate work.

Requirements Upon Return

Upon returning to Northwestern, you are required to submit one copy of your completed internship paper to the Northwestern Study Abroad Office, accompanied by a cover sheet. The office will keep this copy for our records and to ensure that the internship options offered by our affiliated study abroad programs are meeting Northwestern's academic standards.

If you are seeking major, minor or distribution credit, you must submit a copy of your final research paper to the faculty adviser who will determine its suitability for specific Northwestern credit in that particular department.

Note to SESP students:  You can only count internships abroad toward your elective requirements; you cannot petition for major or distribution credit.

Responsibilities of the Northwestern Faculty Adviser

Northwestern faculty members who agree to be the adviser for a student doing an internship abroad for Northwestern credit are undertaking three responsibilities, as follows:

  1. Prior to the student's departure: Work with the student to help formulate a problem or series of questions to be explored in the research paper associated with the internship and to begin identifying the relevant secondary literature on the subject.
  2. While the student is abroad: Advise the student over email on her/his notes, analyses, and final paper.
  3. After the student returns, if they are seeking major, minor or distribution credit: Review the student's final research paper and determine its suitability for specific credit in your department. The student may have to find a new Northwestern faculty adviser willing to work with them if the placement they receive once abroad is significantly different from the one they hoped to do when completing the petition.  In most cases, a faculty member from the study abroad program will already have graded the paper. In reviewing the paper, the adviser should consider whether they would give credit for similar work if it were produced in an undergraduate course in their department.  If the paper has been written in a language that the adviser does not know, the adviser may request that the student translate the paper into English and/or find a Northwestern faculty reader who is fluent in the language and willing to work with the adviser to determine the paper's suitability for specific credit.

Faculty advisers should only consider advising a student during an internship abroad if they agree to the above responsibilities. If they have questions, they should contact the Study Abroad Office at 847-467-6400 or studyabroad@northwestern.edu.

Ongoing Evaluation of Credit-Bearing Internship Opportunities on Northwestern's Affiliated Study Abroad Programs

Northwestern is committed to conducting ongoing evaluations of the credit-bearing internship opportunities available to our students on our affiliated study abroad programs to ensure that they meet the academic standards outlined in this document. The processes that we have established for reviewing students' final internship papers after they return to Northwestern will help us in this ongoing evaluation. In addition, the Study Abroad Office will review internship papers on a regular basis, together with program evaluations, which students on all study abroad programs are required to complete. These documents help us to gain a collective understanding, over time, of the quality of the internship options offered by our affiliated programs.