Internship Program

Applications include student information, special skills, essay questions, and a resumé. You will be asked for 2 professional or academic references, (a professor or supervisor, not a family member or friend) who can speak to your motivation and qualifications for a human rights internship. (Human rights majors are not required to provide references)

Question 1: Please tell us how you have demonstrated a serious interest in human rights. Include influential and formative academic work, work experiences, volunteerism, activism, personal experiences, and/or interests in particular issue areas that have (a) influenced your decision to apply and (b) prepared you for a Human Rights Internship. (500 word limit)

Question 2: Describe your ideal 8-10 week summer Human Rights Internship. Where might you work? What types of issues would you work on? Feel free to include specific tasks that could be accomplished as part of your ideal internship and what you would gain from the experience. Reflect upon one or two challenges you could potentially encounter as well. How would you address these challenges? (750 word limit)

Question 3: Explain which of your talents, skills, and/or insights could most enhance the Human Rights Internship experience for yourself and others in the program (volunteer experiences to share, or experience with social media campaigns, organizing online petitions, etc.). Conversely, are there personal and professional areas where you’re looking to grow? (250 word limit)

Be flexible and realistic. The committee is interested in your capacity to describe a human rights issue or geographic area where you might want to work. The selection committee wants to see your ability to plan a tangible, feasible project. You may suggest some organizations or types of organizations that interest you, but identifying a specific host organization is not necessary for the application. Your answers can be as specific as you want them to be—but a lot can happen between now and when you secure your placement!

The applications are submitted online through a web form; to avoid formatting errors, we strongly encourage you to draft your essay responses in plain text on your computer and then copy/paste them into the web form. We recommend that you use a plain text editor to save your essay responses, use your regular word processor and “Save As” plain text (.txt), and use block paragraphs (i.e. a line between paragraphs instead of indented paragraphs) to separate text.

Above all, the committee is looking for maturity and flexibility. Strong candidates often have a history of engagement in activism or involvement with social justice, although formal work experience is not necessary. Candidates should be familiar with human rights principles and be able to propose a realistic project for an 8-10 week full-time summer internship.

If you are chosen for the interview round, you will be interviewed on Zoom by staff from the Pozen Center and Career Advancement who are knowledgeable about human rights issues and organizations. Interviews are relatively short (about 15 to 20 minutes), and you don’t need to prepare anything beforehand. Casual or business casual attire is fine.

Human Rights Leaders (past interns with firsthand experience of the process) are available to answer questions and provide feedback on application materials during office hours or by appointment. They will refer questions to the staff as needed. Human Rights Leaders are not part of the decision-making process when submitted applications are evaluated. See above for information about office hours. 

Applicants will receive an email the first week of November indicating whether they will be invited to a final round interview with members of the Human Rights Internship Selection Committee. Interviews will take place in early November, and applicants will be notified of the results by mid-November. Selected candidates are expected to attend the Internship Orientation later that month.

Human rights majors receive priority during the selection process since they need to fulfill the major's fieldwork requirement. They are not required to submit the names of two references. We recommend taking the human rights fieldwork course required for the major during the Winter Quarter before your internship. Human rights majors in the internship program during their third year often can more easily tie their internship experience to their BA thesis or capstone project, but students are permitted to fulfill their fieldwork requirement in the summer after their second year. (Students who are not human rights majors are welcome to apply to the internship program.)

Interns come from various backgrounds and should be able to demonstrate a serious interest in human rights. Previous human rights coursework often helps provide some of that background, but it is not required to apply. However, selected interns are required to take at least one approved human rights course at some point before the start of their internship.

The definition of “human rights” is constantly under debate. Strong applications do not just define the problem in terms of human rights, but also conceive of the solution in a human rights framework. We recommend that you consider the intersection between your interests and material in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, other international human rights instruments, or human rights scholarship. Consider how your proposed internship differs from a typical research or service project. Demonstrate that you have considered how your previous and/or future work furthers the field of human rights.

It could be! Strong candidates are able to explain the connection between their past experience and a proposed project. Some students use the internship to deepen their interest in a certain topic or region, and others use it to explore a new but related topic, strategy, or place.

Absolutely not! We encourage you to apply again as a third-year. The experience of applying to a selective program and the work those candidates do during the intervening year puts them in an even better position to apply as third-years.

Students currently earning a master’s degree at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice can complete internships in the first summer of their graduate study or as part of the Kiphart Scholars Program immersive track five-month placement. We recommend that graduate students in other divisions and programs explore the Graduate Global Impact Internship Program and the other excellent resources offered through UChicago GRAD.

No. Only second and third-year students in the College are eligible for the program. Because the application process is selective, most successful candidates are third-year students, with a limited number of slots in each cohort often secured by second-year students.

No. The selection committee is looking for a proposal that involves supervision from a non-governmental or not-for-profit organization, government agency, international body, social movement organization, or similar entity.

Some interns choose to work with organizations that have hosted our students in the past, while others seek out new placements. For assistance and accountability throughout the search process, each awardee will have access to the Human Rights Leaders, in addition to staff from the Pozen Center and Career Advancement. Program alumni can also be an invaluable resource in finding ideal host organizations.

If you are selected for this year’s cohort, a password-protected section of our website will be made available to you. This section allows you to search the list of past internship host organizations by name, region, or topic, and to look at past intern profiles to see the types of projects they worked on during their internships. We also encourage you to contact one of the Human Rights Leaders for any additional help.

No preference is given to those who plan to go abroad. Each year, up to two-thirds of the internship cohort chooses to work in the U.S.

All internship placements (including the host organization and location) must be approved by the Pozen Center. College students who are considering travel to countries with a U.S. State Department Travel Advisory are also required to file a petition through the annual Study Abroad Risk and Security Assessment Committee (SARSAC). SARSAC has approved some petitions in the past, but not all. While each case is different, we generally encourage students filing petitions to work on an alternate plan in case their proposed travel is not approved.

Human Rights Interns are responsible for securing the appropriate visa before starting their internship. The Pozen Center will provide appropriate verification for visa applications, as needed. All Human Rights Interns traveling outside of the U.S. are required to register their travel with UChicago Traveler. International students working in the US or working overseas for a US company should check with their international student advisor about applying for work authorization (CPT - curricular practical training)

Fall Quarter: Once accepted, new interns attend the Internship Orientation held in mid-November.

Winter Break

• Watch at your own pace a series of recorded webinars to prepare for your internship search
• Begin developing a list of potential host organizations

Winter Quarter,

• Brainstorm ideas, contact organizations, and follow up on leads. Some students choose to intern with organizations that have hosted students in the past, while others seek out new placements.
• Take the human rights methods course (required for human rights majors, otherwise optional)
• Attend the Internship Symposium to learn from the previous summer's interns
• Contact a student Human Rights Leader from the previous year’s cohort, who can advise during the search process
• Attend one advising appointment with Career Advancement before the end of January (or UChicago GRAD for Crown Family School students) to go over job search materials and the internship search progress
• Make brief biweekly reports about your internship search, participate in two to three mandatory group trainings, and take human rights classes
• By the end of the Winter Quarter, secure a confirmed placement or have developed several strong leads.

Spring Quarter

• Develop a learning plan in collaboration with your host organization supervisors, identifying projects that fulfill your goals and the organization’s needs
• After completing the work plan, each intern is issued a check for $5,000 to cover summer expenses
• Participate in two to three required training sessions
• Finalize travel and housing plans
• Attend a send-off session to help you get the most out of your internship
• Human rights majors meet with the Director of Practice to review their learning goals

Summer

• Embark on your full-time internship lasting 8 to 10 weeks!
• Throughout the summer, join a virtual meet-up and submit two written reflections to your peers and the Pozen Center staff
• Submit a final report about your experiences
• Human rights majors keep a journal and meet with the Director of Practice to review their internship experience
• As the new academic year begins, return to campus and prepare for a presentation at the Internship Symposium held in either November or January