Hosting an Internship

Hiring MES Interns

You can get help with projects while providing critical learning opportunities to graduate students in the Master of Environmental Studies degree.

Students have many different skills that can you can take advantage of, including:

  • Technical skills, such as GIS, labwork, and fieldwork
  • Communication skills, such as writing, public speaking, and outreach
  • Research skills, including statistical analysis

Learn more about what we require from applicants and what students learn in our program.

Developing Effective Internships

We can help you think through how to organize an internship that will be a positive experience for you and your future interns. Contact us to get started.

Sample projects

  • Design a greenhouse gas inventory for a  municipality
  • Create an outreach plan or teach the public about a specific environmental issue
  • Use GIS data to map species distribution
  • Plan an environmental event or design a system to improve efficiency
  • Analyze data that has been “sitting on the backburner”

Earning credit

Generally, students decide whether to to seek credit for their internships. If your intern is interested in earning credit, you’ll review the learning outcomes with MES faculty, complete some additional paperwork, and provide a formal narrative evaluation of the intern’s work.

Evergreen’s academic quarters are 10 weeks long, and usually start in September, January, and April. An internship for a single quarter may be up to 4 credits, which generally works out to 20 or more hours per week.

Earning money

You may get a better pool of internship applicants if you are able to provide a stipend for your interns. Consider budgeting $3,000 per quarter for a 20 hour per week internship, which works out to $15/hour.

If you don’t have a budget for stipends, consider other ways you can make it possible to support your students. Paying for mileage, equipment, supplies, field experiences, or professional meetings makes it easier for them to focus on their studies, including your internship.

We understand that some internship hosts do not have funding for stipends; however, any support you can give to students is appreciated. This may include mileage reimbursement, purchasing equipment or supplies, or financially supporting students for field experiences and professional meetings.

Advertising Your Internship

If you already have an internship opportunity ready to go, email martina@evergreen.edu with the following information:

  • Internship title and description
  • Name/contact info of internship supervisor
  • Application instructions including who to send materials to, what materials to send, how they want materials and when they are due
  • Start and end dates (if applicable)
  • Hours/week
  • Compensation (stipend, hourly wage, reimbursement for travel, etc)

The Assistant Director will review your materials and contact you with any questions. Then we’ll put your opportunity in front of our students.

For the best chance of getting students’s attention, send in your materials to synchronize with Evergreen’s academic year:

  • Summer: by mid-April
  • Fall: by late April or early May (students generally plan early for Fall quarter!)
  • Winter: by late October
  • Spring: by early February