Sociology

Student Internship Information

Student Internship Information - Sociology Internship Coordinator Pamela McMullin-Messier mcmullin@cwu.edu

Online Internship information is located on the Career Services webpage.

To complete the Cooperative Education Internship document go to your student MyCWU; go to the application section and click on Wildcat Career Network

Instructions from Pamela McMullin-Messier for the Sociology student looking to participate in a Sociology 490 Cooperative Education internship experience, below.

Sociology and Social Services Majors

How exciting! You are ready to start the internship process! Social Services workers show a great deal of initiative and organization. It is imperative that you use this opportunity to develop workplace skills that will benefit you, and the people you serve, as you enter your profession. We have a great Career Services program here at CWU. I am here to help support and monitor your internship and Career Services is here to help get you across the starting line.

It is important to start early. This process can take up to 2 months total to complete, from searching for sites until the final application is signed off on. You will not be able to enroll in Sociology 490 until your application is completed and approved.  Please do not wait until a week or two before the quarter starts before you start the process.

If you don’t know where/what you are looking for in an internship experience, please respond to the following questions. If you already have a site identified, please respond with the site information.

1. Questionnaire

• What population do you want to work with?
• Where are you wanting to intern? (location)
• What have you looked into within your community?
• What quarter do you want to do your internship?
• What is your anticipated graduation date?
• How many credits are you wanting to take? Forty intern hours equals one credit, so think about how many credits you need. The Social Services Department requires 160 credit hours to complete Sociology 490. 1 credit = 40 hours

You can do an internet search to locate many options in your community. A simple search of “Kittitas County Resources (insert county of your choice)” or “Tacoma Community Resources (insert your city)” will bring up many resource lists that you can look through for various sites.

2. Career Services Information

Review the information on the Career Services page. This will provide you with a roadmap for how to secure an internship placement. See below.

Internship Checklist

Affliliation Agreements and Pre-Internship Files

Standard Academic Requirements worksheet (Word doc)

Current Affliation Agreements A-Z

3. Read carefully:

The expectation for students is that they explore their internship opportunities independently and contact the sites that they are interested in directly to see if they are taking interns. Once a site is secured, then the student works with the site supervisor to develop goals, objectives and tasks.

Students will follow the instructions from the checklist above and once Career Services has all of the necessary electronic paperwork, they will circulate the electronic paperwork for signatures and the student will be registered for Sociology 490 upon the completion of the electronic paperwork. You will use the form on the Career Services (Current Students: Click on “Wildcat Career Network” under the Applications menu on your MyCWU dashboard) called: Internship Academic Requirements Worksheet.

4. Tasks/Objectives

You will work with your internship site supervisor to develop your goals and tasks as they relate to what you’ll be doing in your internship. There is a tip sheet on the checklist that will assist you in drafting these. You can do it one of two ways.

1. You can determine with the site supervisor what tasks you’ll actually be doing, you will then create your learning goals/objectives around those tasks.
2. If you know, you can develop your goals/objectives first and then ask the supervisor to assign tasks that will help you reach those goals. It is likely that the first option will be the best.

Internships provide students with an opportunity to put into practice skills they have learned while in school. In addition, students should have an opportunity to enhance those skills, obtain the perspective of a work environment and benefit from a mentor or supervisor’s experience and advice. To gain maximum benefit, the work experience must have a supervisor or mentor available to provide coaching and evaluation of the student. Writing the learning objectives is a collaborative effort.

Before the internship begins, the student and site supervisor should develop at least three learning objectives to be met during the work experience.

Learning Objectives: What do you expect to learn or experience during your internship? Learning objectives are specific, measurable statements of what you hope to accomplish or learn during the internship. Each objective should be clear and concise.

Think about what you want to gain from this internship experience. Setting goals and having clear learning objectives provides a means for evaluation of your experience. Each learning objective should be specific, realistic, and measurable. Each must have a completion date within the time frame of the internship.

A measurable learning objective is a clear statement of what and how you are planning to accomplish your goals.

Objectives are not tasks—they are not a punch list of tasks to be performed. However, very specific tasks should be listed for each objective. Each task should advance the objective it supports. To begin writing learning objectives, first describe the job environment. You need to ascertain whether this environment will provide you with the opportunity and the means to enhance your skills and to contribute in a meaningful way.

Think about what you want to gain from this experience. Do you want to learn new techniques? Do you want to discover new ways to solve problems?

Finally, list the specific tasks you will perform that lead to the accomplishment of each learning objective.

Example for a human services internship:

Objective/Goal: To learn the skills needed to be able to effectively engage clients in the assessment and case planning process.

Task: Attend and observe assessments conducted by clinicians with clients and shadow clinicians and case managers as they develop individual case plans for clients.

Objective/Goal: To better understand how the “Integrated Treatment Model” assists youth in the juvenile justice system develop the life and social skills they will need to reintegrate into their communities successfully.

Task: Observe/participate in planning meetings and individual/group counseling sessions with youth to assist them to understand their personal goals and progress in the program.

5. Complete the Application

The information below is what you’ll use to complete the basic information for the application which you’ll complete through the Career Services Portal. Just an FYI, I do not have access to your application, but Career Services does. If you have questions about the portal, they can assist.

Assignments:  The required assignments are weekly journal entries to be submitted at the 3-, 6-, and 10-week mark as well as a final paper that is due during finals week. These will be submitted in Canvas. Your journal entries should be typed and submitted at the 3-, 6-, and 10-week mark.

The final paper will be a 4–5-page paper that describes your experience and links your experiences and activities to the original objectives/goals that you described in your application as well as any additional skills/experiences you had during your time as an intern.

6. Use the Internship Academic Requirements Worksheet

Major: Social Services or Sociology
School: College of the Sciences
Soc 490
Department Phone 509 963 2195
Faculty Instructor: Pamela McMullen-Messer pamela.mcmullin-messier@cwu.edu
Department Chair: Pamela McMullen-Messer pamela.mcmullin-messier@cwu.edu
Dean: Michael Harrod michael.harrod@cwu.edu
Term Paper Yes, @ the end of the quarter
Journals due weekly (see above)