ESM students are encouraged to consider doing an internship sometime during their junior or senior year. Internships are a wonderful way to gain practical skills and hands-on experience in the field as well as a way to cultivate professional contacts.
To receive announcements about both internship and job opportunities, ESM majors can sign up to be on the ESM listserv. Please send a request to esmoffice@pdx.edu if you wish to subscribe. In addition to the listserv announcements, the department offers periodic information sessions with representatives from agencies and organizations who are looking to place interns.
Our students have interned at places like Oregon Dept of Environmental Quality, Port of Portland, City of Portland, Water Environmental Services, U.S. Geological Survey and Columbia Slough Watershed Council.
Internships for Credit
It is also possible for students to earn credit for their internship. To obtain credit, students must arrange for a full-time ESM faculty member to serve as their advisor.
- ESM 401 Research Internship: In this internship, a student works closely with a faculty member on a research project to gain skills and experience in field work, lab work, and/or data analysis. The student works in an on- or off-campus active research lab.
Prerequisite: Prior approval by an ESM faculty. - ESM 404 Cooperative Education (CE) Internship: In this internship, a student works closely with an external organization to gain skills and experience in the area of environmental science and management. The student works in an environmental position in industry or government.
Prerequisite: Prior approval by an ESM faculty.
For further details that include participant responsibilities and reporting guidelines, see the ESM 401 Guidelines and ESM 404 Guidelines. Be advised that the guidance on how to complete the By Arrangement registration has not been updated yet, but the remainder of the documents are valid.
Requirements
- Identify a research internship in a PSU research lab or an internship opportunity with an external organization, and review the required documentation (see above guidelines).
- For research internships, your supervisor may be the faculty PI in the lab or another lab member. For external CE internships, you need a PSU faculty advisor to help you through the process. You can ask an ESM faculty member you know, or reach out to the ESM Chair to serve as your faculty advisor.
- Once you have a faculty member who has agreed to grant you credits for the internship, notify your pathway advisor (Stephanie or Sang).
- Complete the necessary documentation with the help of your faculty advisor as needed, and agree on the number of credits you will earn for the experience. In general, 1 credit = 30 hours of work over a 10-week quarter; 4 credits = 120 hours of work or about 12 hours per week. In some cases, you may work more than 120 hours, but the internship is capped at 4-credits.
- Prior to registering for internship credits, you must complete the CITI Responsible Conduct of Research Training (instructions for how to register and complete the training course are found in the link). Send your completion certificate to the ESM Office (esmoff@pdx.edu).
- You can register for ESM 401 and 404 credits through the University's online By-Arrangement System. For further information about the online By-Arrangement system, please see the By Arrangement page.
- Submit digital copies of the following to the ESM office no later than the end of the first week of the quarter you are registering for credits (you can do this at the same time as you submit the CITI certificate):
- At the end of the term you submit to your faculty advisor:
For the complete packet of all forms, you may download them here: