Internships in Public History: Requirements

Dr. Wendy Woloson is the director of the public history internship program. Contact her at wendy.woloson@camden.rutgers.edu. 

Requirements: Interns are enrolled for 3 credit hours, which represents a minimum of 100 hours at the internship site. Interns also complete a work report, a public history project, and an annotated bibliography.

  • The work report is a bi-weekly (every two weeks) summary of the work experience, but must also go beyond basic duties to reflect on what the intern is learning about the field of public history. This will be submitted to the internship faculty advisor via email.
  • The project may take a number of different forms (research report, exhibit plan, archival finding aid, and so on), but should be equivalent in substance to a graduate level course. The topic and scope of the project must be approved by the faculty adviser, who must also receive or view the project prior to awarding credit. Deadline for submission: Last day of the semester or summer term.*
  • Final Report (ca. 10 pages). A summary of what you did during your internship, including key processes, decisions, and outcomes. The Final Report should cover, in detail, explanations of courses of action, rationales for them, and steps taken. You should include references to relevant literature from your courses that helped inform content chosen, approaches taken, theories considered, etc.
Arranging an internship: Graduate students secure their own placements. However, the department makes opportunities known through postings and by e-mail. Once the internship placement is secured, students also must arrange for a faculty adviser and register for Graduate internship credits.

Paper trail: The following steps are to be followed to help ensure that all parties have a satisfactory experience. It is the intern’s responsibility to see that these steps are completed as directed.

  • Initial Proposal. Prior to the internship, the intern must submit a brief proposal describing the potential internship to the faculty advisor, and then meet with the faculty advisor to discuss the details and viability of the internship.
  • EXPECTATIONS Agreement: Prior to the internship, the intern, supervisor, and faculty adviser must complete and sign this agreement. This must be submitted before registration for credit.
  • PROJECT PROPOSAL: To be completed no later than the third week of the internship, in collaboration with the internship supervisor, and a more formal, refined, and detailed version of the initial proposal.
  • SUPERVISORS EVALUATION: The intern must provide this form to the supervisor, who will return it to the faculty adviser no later than the last day of the semester.*
  • INTERN EVALUATION OF EXPERIENCE: The intern must complete this no later than the end of the semester and return it to the faculty adviser.

* If the project does not align well with the semester calendar, an “incomplete” may be awarded and replaced later with a letter grade. All work and the evaluation must be submitted no later than 30 days after the completion of the internship.

** It is students’ responsibility to communicate with the faculty advisor for Internships to make sure all requirements are being met in order to receive a final grade