Internships and Opportunities
Things to Consider:
Environmental Studies (ENVR) students can gain valuable experience in the field—and fulfill the Environmental Experiences component of the major—through internships. Internships provide an opportunity to learn in a work setting. A time commitment of 45 hours of on-site work per credit hour is required. Therefore, a three-credit internship typically requires supervised work of approximately 10-12 hours a week for 14 weeks during a regular semester, or 135 hours of work in a summer or winter term. Students may sign up for three, four, five or even six credits, if it fits their schedules.
An internship is not the same as a research project or a directed study – an internship must involve student placement with a supervisor in a work setting, learning new material and skills. In the past few years, ENVR students have interned at organizations as diverse as the Colorado Sierra Club, National Park Service, National Forest Service, Maryland Coastal Bays Program, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, MD Department of the Environment, Horn Point Laboratories, Chesapeake Bay Trust, Sussex County Preservation Office, Montgomery County Department of the Environment, Old Growth Forest Network, Adrenaline High (an eco-tourism company), Bienvenidos a Delmarva (an immigrant outreach consortium), and the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Zoological Park, among others. ENVR students have also taught environmental education in a Peruvian orphanage, worked at environmental education camps, and interned on several organic farms.
Students can set up internships in the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ area during the fall or spring, or literally anywhere in the world during the summer. Internships are student-generated - with the assistance of Environmental Studies faculty, SU Career Services staff, and a little research, there are a myriad of possibilities in addition to the organizations mentioned above.
To create an internship,
- Think. Internships can provide many benefits—an experiential learning opportunity, a way to explore possible jobs, a way to fill in holes in your own learning, a way to develop a network of like-minded people. Consider your own interests: What are you passionate about? What piques your interest? What type of job do you think you’d like to have? What area of learning would you like to learn more about?
- Search. We recommend a number of avenues:
- Keep your eye out for (mostly) weekly internship/volunteer/ENVR news emails that we sends out to majors and minors
- Talk to your ENVR Studies professors
- If you have specific organizations in mind, contact them directly and see what you can set up.
- Contact SU Career Services
- Define/plan. Talk with the sponsoring organization and ENVR's Project Specialist to work out a plan that spells out hours, expectations, and potential final products. An internship has to involve educationally productive work – not just filing papers, stuffing envelopes, or mopping floors, for instance. To help get you started, Career Services provides general SU guidelines for internships.
- Commit.
Internships Close to SU/Better Suited for Fall and Spring
- Maryland Coastal Bays Program
- Assateague Coastal Trust/Coastkeeper
- Wicomico County Recreation, Parks and Tourism
- Lower Shore Land Trust (LSLT) Internship
- Nanticoke Watershed Alliance
- Environmental Education Program
- Nanticoke Creekwatchers Citizen Water Monitoring Program
- Migrant Clinicians Network
- ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Zoo
- National Park Services Assistant
- Delmarva Discovery Center on the Pocomoke River
- North American River Otter Trainer Internship Program (DDC)
- Husbandry Aid Internship (DDC)
- The Nature Conservancy
- Pocomoke River State Park
- Assateague State Park
Organic Farm Internships
Summer Appropriate Internships
- Interpretative Ranger
- Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
- Midshore RIVERKEEPER® Conservancy (MRC)
- Oyster Culture Internship: Horn Point
- The Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center
- Phillips Wharf Environmental Center Marine Science Educator
- Sassafras Environmental Education Center/ Eastern Shore Land Conservancy
- The Smithsonian Gardens
- Environmental Interpretation Internships
- Wildlife Biology Internship. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- Delaware State Parks
- Pickering Creek Audubon Center
- Abbotts Mill Nature Center
- Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
- Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve
- Naturalist Internship @ The Oregon Ridge Nature Center in Baltimore
- Eastern Shore Land Conservancy
- Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum Summer Educator