Graduate Internships

Students have two options for finding an internship: they may apply for a position that has been curated by the Department with a community partner or they may find their own internship (find curated positions here).  The Department’s list of sponsored internships varies from year to year. There are usually 5-8 options in fields such as public history, academic publishing, and policy research.  These internships may be in-person, hybrid, or remote depending on the needs of the organization.

Students can find their own internship by searching Handshake, meeting with Christina Matta, the Department Career Advisor, or contacting organizations on their own.  Larger organizations (such as the Smithsonian or Milwaukee Public Museum) may have deadlines a semester (or more) before the term of the internship, so please start your search early if you plan to find your own internship. For selected examples of both cultivated and independent internships, see the categories below. 

The Department of History will provide approximately 10 stipends of $6500 each to support internships with not-for-profit organizations. The internship must be a minimum of 160 hours work for the summer, distributed as 20 hours/week for eight weeks or in a similar distribution agreed upon with the supervisor.  The stipend will be issued in two installments: $6000 at the start of the summer and $500 at the end of the summer upon completion of a short reflection. 

Paid internships are not eligible for Department support unless the pay offered is less than $6500 for a comparable number of hours. In that case, the Department may provide funding to cover the difference between the pay offered and $6500, but such decisions are at the discretion of the Department staff.

Once you have secured and accepted an internship, apply for Department funding via this form. Review the questions prior to beginning the application, as you will need to explain how this experience will help you and, if you have found your own internship, upload a detailed job description from your supervisor. The funding application for summer 2026 will open in late January and be available through April 15.

The Graduate Program prioritizes applications from students who:

• Are first-time participants in the program
• Demonstrate alignment between their professional goals and the selected internship
• Do not have other forms of summer support (fellowship, lecturer position, PA position, etc.)

Note: Students with a summer stipend in their funding package cannot collect both forms of funding at the same time. The Graduate Program will push the summer support stipend to a subsequent summer.

American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee | 2024

“I found working for ADC this summer extremely valuable, both professionally and academically, as it connected me directly with the community I am studying. Some current staff members are those who attended the very schools I am researching, and I am now in the process of trying to schedule an interview with the director of ADC and will be attending the ADC conference this September. Only recently, I also discovered one of the interviewees I met with is running the ADC conference. Having the funding to support my internship has been crucial to providing me an avenue to engage with the community in a meaningful way while also providing the necessary financial support required to live during the summer.”

NOAA Voices Oral History Archive | 2024

“Being at NOAA was excellent exposure to the potential positions available to people in the humanities at institutions centered on more quantitative scientific research. If I do not go into academia, my hope is to work with scientists either from a research or consulting perspective. My time with NOAA Voices offered me some reassurance that there are careers out there that depend on the kind of skills history of science cultivates.”