Internship Program

Contact

If you are interested in enrolling in the internship program in English or need to set up a meeting, please fill out this brief form to get the process started. Should you have any questions about the program, please contact Dr. Mark Alan Mattes at mark.mattes@louisville.edu.

Overview

The English Department’s internship program is designed to grant students college credit for apprentice work in a field that has clear connections with their English degree. In order to enroll in the internship program for credit towards your English degree, you must meet the following prerequisites:

• be a declared English major
• have accumulated at least 60 credit hours by the start of the semester in which you are enrolled in ENGL 450/555
• have completed at least 6 credit hours in English beyond ENGL 102/105 by the start of the semester in which you are enrolled in ENGL 450/555
• have a GPA of 3.0 or better (cumulative or major)

Please note that while English minors are welcome to enroll in the internship program for general credit, internship course credit does not currently count towards fulfillment of the English minor requirements.

Work in technical writing, business writing, publishing, grant writing, editing, public relations, marketing, film, broadcasting, law, museum and library archives and acquisitions--to name some possibilities--can provide experience reflecting the goals of the English department’s undergraduate internship program. As long as the internship work engages the transferable skills of English studies, what the work is and where one does the work is flexible.

Earning U of L Credit

Internship credit on your transcript can be a very useful credential. To earn U of L credit for an internship, you will need to take English 450 or English 555-CUE concurrently. In addition to the work that you do for the internship, you will have to complete academic work documenting and reflecting on it. Students in the program gain three credit hours for doing an internship.

Gaining credit entails two sets of requirements. First, the student must complete at least 40 hours of work for their employer/supervisor during the semester (approx. 4 hrs/wk), after which the onsite supervisor will provide a written evaluation of the student's performance. Second, the student must complete 8-10 work logs, a final paper, and a portfolio representative of the kinds of work done as an intern, to be completed in consultation with the internship program director. With English 450 and 555, the process is very much like taking an independent study course, with collaboration, in this case, between student intern, site supervisor, and internship program director.

English 450 is available to all English students who have completed at least 60 hours in their degree program. English 555-CUE is available to those who have completed 90 hours. To enroll in English 450 or 555, you must receive the internship program director’s written endorsement. They will be the official course instructor who confers your grade.

For more information about English 450 & English 555, including assignment and assessment details, please consult the course syllabus.

Current Opportunities

The department works directly with community partners in order to develop unique opportunities for English students who enroll in the internship program. Recent successful placements include positions with Louisville Story Program, Miracle Monocle, Louisville Literary Arts, UofL Archives & Special Collections, the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture, the Kentucky Department of Education, Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs, and others. If you are interested in enrolling in the internship program, and if one or more of the opportunities listed below strike your interest, please contact the program director, Dr. Mark Alan Mattes. After discussing your qualifications for the internship program, your potential fit for these openings, and how you might integrate these particular internships into the requirements for English 450 and/or English 555, the internship director can facilitate direct introductions to the onsite supervisors who have so generously worked with the department to make these positions available to our program enrollees.

Remaining Openings for Spring 2024

University Writing Center - Community Literacy Internship

Thumbprint Consulting - Grant Writing

Placement

If you have landed an internship already, congratulations! If you are interested in receiving college credit for your internship, please get in touch with the program director right away to assess whether your position qualifies for credit and begin the onboarding process.

If you have an internship site in mind, contact the program director to determine if your position complies with program guidelines. The internship should not simply be a job you are already doing for which you decide to gain college credit. It is often the case that the intern employer is an off-campus institution, although there are always exceptions!

From time to time, the department receives queries from businesses, government agencies, media outlets, non-profits, and other organizations seeking interns, and these opportunities will be publicized on the English Majors and Minors Distribution List and on this web page. Sometimes students can work with a company or organization to define a need that an internship can fill.

In addition to the "Current Opportunities" developed and curated by the English department's internship program, you should consult a range of UofL resources to help you identify potential positions and build connections with community partners:

• Additional partners with whom English students have been placed include Backside Learning Center at Churchill Downs; Louisville Courier-Journal; Kentucky Department of Education; Speed Art Museum; Louisville Public Media; Louisville Metro TV; Louisville Free Public Library; Mightily Advertising; Kentucky Refugee Ministries; Life in Abundance International; Live Nation Entertainment; as well as local law firms, marketing agencies, and others.
• The Commonwealth Center for Humanities and Society (CCHS) actively works with community partners to place interns. Recent placements include positions at the Frazier History Museum, the Filson Historical Society, the Louisville Free Public Library, the Portland Museum, Locust Grove, Cave Hill Heritage Foundation, and others. You find out more about CCHS' facilitation of internship placements and their community partners here.
• Another important resource is the UofL career center, which maintains a database of internship opportunities.
• Finally, please consult this selected list of community and institutional partners. Many of these entities have standing internship programs. Others may be a good fit but may require a direct contact and meet-and-greet to figure out if an internship that harnesses training in English is a possibility.

Onboarding Forms

Before being approved for enrollment in 450 or 555, you must meet with the Internship Director, receive approval of your internship for course credit, and complete and submit the following forms in concert with your on site supervisor and the Internship Director:

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT INTERN AGREEMENT (To be completed and submitted by the student prior to the internship.)

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (To be completed by the Onsite Supervisor and student prior to the internship.)

WORK AGREEMENT (To be completed by the Faculty Supervisor, Onsite Supervisor and student prior to the start of the internship.)