Internships & Professional Development

Students can pursue structured, supervised off-campus learning opportunities in nonprofit, government, education, associations, or health care organizations in the U.S. or abroad for course credit. This can be done either as an internship or as professional development with a current employer. Students choose internship and professional development opportunities to prepare for specific careers or to help in career choices. In some cases, students find work experiences can help identify topics for their integrated seminar projects.

Purpose of Internships & Professional Development
As a highly individualized learning experience, internship & professional development placements have two purposes: 1) they provide students with opportunities to integrate practical and academic experiences in the context of public service management, and 2) they give students opportunities to contribute to society, thereby extending the public service mission of DePaul University.

Students can take advantage of these credit bearing workplace experiences locally, nationally, or internationally.  Participating in an internship or professional development experience provides transferable skills that can match a student's academic studies with their personal interests. For more information please read the School's current Internship Guidelines.

Internship & Professional Development Course Registration:
Students must contact both the Assistant Director for Academic Advising (spsadvising@depaul.edu), and Michael Diamond (mdiamond@depaul.edu), Internship Coordinator, in order to register for either internship course (MPS 601: Professional Development and Internship, or MPS 610: Internship - Capstone). Both the informal course registration and sample agreement need to be completed, with signatures, before a student can be registered.

Internship & Professional Development Forms:

• Informal Course Registration Form
  
• Internship Course Registration Form
  
• Internship Intake Forms
  
• PPS 398 and MPS 601 Internship Intake Form
  
• MPS 610 Internship-Capstone Intake Form
• Internship Agreement Forms
  
• PPS 398 Internship Agreement Form
• MPS 601 Internship Agreement Form 
• MPS 610 Internship-Capstone Agreement Form
• Sample Internship Agreement Form
  
• Internship Evaluation Form
  
• MPS Internship Log of Hours Worked Form
  

For more information about SPS internships & professional development, please contact Michael Diamond at mdiamond@depaul.edu.