The Internship Component

Continuing with last week’s discussion on internships, here at UMSI completing 6 academic credits worth of an internship is a required component of the professional Master’s degree program. Not only does the internship develop students’ professional skills, it also gives students the opportunity to apply their knowledge base to real-world problems outside of the School of Information.

Students become eligible to receive internship credit after two terms at SI. Most students satisfy the 6 credit requirement during a summer internship, with others going on to receive up to 3 more internship credits during the subsequent academic year.

So long as your internship is in an area related to what is taught and researched at UMSI, there are no limits to where you can intern!

For example, first-year LIS student Alyssa Pierce will be completing one of her internships with the Bucherhallen Hamburg (Hamburg Public Library) in Germany.

There she will work with their Intercultural Librarian, specifically on programming and services for refugees and asylum seekers in Germany. She met the Hamburg-based librarian she will be interning with at a conference she gave a poster presentation at. This internship was very relevant to her interests. In fact she stated that she did her final project for SI647 Information Resources and Services, “...on refugee services in public libraries around the world and that project not only ignited my interest in the subject, but gave me a lot to talk about with the people at the conference where I met the librarian from Hamburg.”

The great news is that if you have an interest in doing an international internship, SI will work to make it possible for by providing funding through the Career Development Office.

For more information on the type of work SI students have completed as part of internships, check out the Project Gallery on Seelio.

And check out the 2015 Internship Report for more information on salaries, companies, and regions worked in.