Northern Arizona University

GRADUATE STUDIES

Graduate Degree Requirements

Grad Assistants

Thesis Option

Internship Option

Graduate Forms and Examples

Catalog Description

NAU Graduate College

PSA Annual Meetings

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

 

GRADUATE PROGRAM INTERNSHIP OPTION

OVERVIEW

As part of your degree requirements, you will need to complete either an internship or a thesis.  In selecting an option, you should evaluate your career goals and discuss the options with your graduate committee (See Graduate Committee Policy below).  If you select the the internship option, the following information should guide you in setting up and completing your internship.

GENERAL ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Before you will be allowed to register for graduate intrenship credits (SOC 696), you MUST meet the following conditions:

• Have "Regular" standing with the Graduate College. (No student with a "Provisional" standing may register for intership hours.)

• Have completed all thirty hours of coursework required for the degree as documented in the Course of Study Form - Applied Research or Sociological Perspectives.  (You may not register for internship hours with an outstanding "Incomplete" or "In Progress" in any of these classes) One exception - If you must maintain "full-time" status, you may petition your graduate committee to admit you to register for internship hours with twenty seven hours of coursework complete.  However, you must take your final three hours of coursework at the same time you are pursuing your internship hours.

• Have formed a graduate committee and filed a Course of Study Form signed by this committee.

• Have a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 on all graduate coursework.

• Have received approval of internship placement/paper proposal from your committee chair and committee members.  (All documentation required must be approved by your graduate committee and on file in the graduate coordinator's office before you can register for SOC 696)

• Have formed a graduate committee and filed a Thesis/Internship Permission to Register Form signed by this committee.

          Graduate Internship Checklist

          Internship Agrement Form

 

GRADUATE COMMITTEE POLICY

This form and your written proposal are to be filed with the graduate coordinator, who will then give you the sequence number for the internship hours and sign your registration form.  The chair of your committee will serve as your internship supervisor and work directly with the agency.

Requirements for the above internship credits include working in an agency for a minimum of 20 hours per week for 15 weeks during Fall/Spring semesters or 30 hours per week for 10 weeks during Summer session.

 

AGENCY HOURS TO COURSE CREDIT EQUIVALENCY

SPRING and FALL SEMESTERS - 15 WEEKS

REQUIRED HOURS PER WEEK	REQUIRED HOURS PER SEMESTER	CREDIT HOURS
20 HRS/WK	300 HRS/SEMESTER	6 CREDIT HRS
30 HRS/WK	450 HRS/SEMESTER	9 CREDIT HRS
40 HRS/WK	600 HRS/SEMESTER	12 CREDIT HRS

SUMMER SEMESTER - 10 WEEKS

REQUIRED HOURS PER WEEK	REQUIRED HOURS PER SEMESTER	CREDIT HOURS
30 HRS/WK	300 HRS/SEMESTER	6 CREDIT HRS
40 HRS/WK	400 HRS/SEMESTER	9 CREDIT HRS

In addition to meeting the required hours, an internship manuscript of thesis quality must be completed.  The internship manuscript can be written in one of the following areas:

• A proposal for a program evaluation
• A needs assessment study for the agency
• An organizational analysis of the agency
• A formal grant proposal for the agency
• A research report
• Any other paper option must have prior approval from internship committee  

Each of the above internship paper options is designed to have you incorporate the lectures of the classroom with the internship experience, including the sociological relevance of your placement.  In selecting your paper option, you should do so in careful consultation with your graduate committee members.  In fact, the type of internship manuscript you are planning to write should influence, not only your placement within the agency, but also the decision as to who will be serving on your graduate committee.  You will want to enlist members according to their expertise in the various areas.

Click here for examples of agencies where students have interned in the past.

Upon the graduate committee's approval of your proposal, the committee chair and members will complete and sign the Thesis/Internship Permission to Register Form, which allows the student to register for the thesis hours (SOC 699). This form and the thesis proposal are to be filed with the graduate coordinator, who will then give you the permission number for the thesis hours and sign your registration form.

 

INTERNSHIP PROPOSAL OUTLINE

1. Project Description and specific goals.

2. Literature Review – Describe how the internship connects with specific sociological literature. You should outline the theoretical and substantive areas you plan to examine. Display a familiarity with the literature and highlight key themes and concepts that you feel will help you evaluate, assess, or research the particular organization.

3. Procedures

• Description of Internship Work

• Strategic plan for completing internship (including time line).

• If internship includes research:

a. Research design

b. Subjects used (if applicable)

c. Sampling design

d. Data collection procedure

e. Materials

f. Validity and reliability of measurements

g. Data analysis procedure

h. Statistical procedures to be used (if applicable)

• If not conducting research:

a. Describe how you will track/record your experiences (e.g. journal)

b. What do you aim to derive from your experiences?

4. Qualifications of the Student—describe the specific qualifications of the internship and how you meet these qualifications (e.g. prior degrees, course work, experience).

 

CONTENT OF THE FINAL INTERNSHIP MANUSCRIPT

All internship manuscripts require the incorporation of sociological literature.  In terms of the content of the various manuscript options, the following should serve as a guide for organizing the particular paper you have selected:

• The Program Evaluation: The manuscript for this option requires that three basic areas be addressed.  First, the paper is to contain a socio-historical account of how agencies such as this came into existence.  For example, "What were the social forces at work that led to the emergence of this type of agency in society and what specific factors led to the establishment of this particular agency?"  (i.e., in the transition from an agrarian to industrial society, basic social institutions underwent profound social changes, the emergence of this agency in the society reflects one aspect of the changes that took place -- an in-depth development of these points would constitute the major portion of this section of the paper).
  In the next section of the paper, you should discuss the overall mission of the specific agency in which you are placed as well as the specific goals that agency has established for itself.  After presenting this information, you can then delineate the specific aspect of the agency you are planning to evaluate.  This is the equivalent of "Statement of the Problem" and Literature Review" components of the traditional research process.
  The third section of the paper deals with the methodological design and techniques you plan to employ in your evaluation of the agency.  This is basically the "Research Design" aspect of the study.  Points of focus would include "What type of study are you conducting?" "What are your sampling techniques?", "How are you collecting and measuring the data?"  This phase of the paper specifically discusses all the methodological aspects of the study as well as presenting measurement techniques to be used in collecting and analyzing the data.  As this is a proposal for a program evaluation, you do not have to actually collect and analyze the data, but you do have to present the information that would be required in a research project up to this point.
• The Needs Assessment:  This option has three basic components to the manuscript.  The sociological relevance could be integrated here.  First, you describe to the reader what, in general, a needs assessment is and why it is needed in today's society.  Next, you are to present a literature review of previous needs assessments studies conducted in agencies or settings similar to yours and discuss their relevance in planning your needs assessment study.  Then, focusing on the agency in which you are placed, begin to elaborate upon the specific needs assessment study you are going to conduct.  You should address questions such as, "What needs of the agency or its environment are you going to assess?"  (Client needs, staff needs, community needs, etc?)  This is actually "Statement of the Problem."
  Once you have decided what you are going to do, you will now discuss all of the methodological procedures you will follow in order to complete your assessment (sampling techniques, type of design, instruments used for data collection, etc.)
  The final phase of the manuscript consists of the presentation and analysis of the data.  Included in this section is a discussion of the implications of your findings.  The above three components of the paper will constitute the final paper that you will submit to your committee.
• The Organizational Analysis:  The manuscript for this option is also comprised of three sections.  In the first part of the paper, students should present an overview of the various theories dealing with social organization.  After presenting this overview, you may then focus upon the particular aspect of organizational theory that you are going to examine in relation to the agency in which you are serving as an intern.  This is the "Statement of the Problem."
  In the second phase of the manuscript, you are to discuss the methodology to be followed in your collecting and analyzing the data.  Specifically, "How will I operationalize the conceptual aspects of the theory in order to test the validity of the theory?"; "What specific research design will I employ in my study?"; and "How is the data to be collected and analyzed?" are among the questions that must be addressed.
  The final phase of the manuscript is the presentation of your findings and the implications of you findings relative to your original research question and the overall body of organizational theory.
• The Formal Grant Proposal:  This option is designed to give you experience in grant writing.  Many agencies today are either funded, or their budgets are supplemented, by external sources.  The written phase of this internship option consists of your completing and submitting a grant which proposes funding for some aspect (personnel, equipment, etc.) of the agency.  Of course, the specific content of this paper will be dictated by the documentation required by the funding source.  At a minimum, these sources usually require a rationale for the request, a plan for the program / project, a proposed budget, and a plan for evaluating the effect of the funded program.  An additional sociological analysis of the agency's role and needs will be a required component for this option.
• The Research Report:  This option would be selected if the internship placement is a research oriented position.  In this option, the work assigned to you in your internship would require you to conduct a specific research project for the agency or organization.  The proposal you develop for the research project will become the first draft of this paper.  In this proposal, you should clearly outline the specific details of the research question you are investigating and the methodological procedures you will follow in collecting and analyzing the data.  The final paper will be a research report that consists of the contents your original proposal as well as the presentation and analysis of the data.  Furthermore, the report will be contextualized through a review of relevant sociological literature.

 

REMARKS

As you can see, it is extremely important to work closely with your graduate committee during all phases of your work on the paper.  In fact, it would be wise to submit each part of the manuscript to your committee as it is completed.  This will allow committee members to have input at each stage of the paper's development and provide for continuity in the writing of the final draft.

 

CREDIT FOR INTERNSHIP

Credit is earned upon completion of the field work experience and the approval of the completed internship manuscript by your graduate committee.  You should consult the General Format Guidelines for Theses and Dissertations handout from the Graduate College regarding the format for the internship manuscript.  When the committee approves the final work, a meeting is scheduled and the internship manuscript is presented to interested faculty for their approval.  Six credit hours will be credited toward your degree when the internship manuscript is signed and on file in the graduate coordinator's office.  (Click here for sample Cover Sheet/Title Page)