History and Political Science Internships

History and Political Science majors are strongly encouraged to complete an internship as part of their undergraduate experience. Internships offer students the opportunity to work in a professional setting, guided by practitioners in the field with academic supervision by the college. Historical Communications majors and students in the Law & Society program are required to fulfill at least one three-credit internship.

Internships:
· help students identify career goals and formulate plans for graduate study
· provide job experience in a professional setting and
· offer contacts (often invaluable for post-graduate job search or graduate school applications).

Please see the examples of internships completed by our students since Spring 2006:
Political Science Internships
History and Historical Communications Internships
Pre-law internships

Political Science Internships:
· Several Political Science students have been placed as interns with individual PA State Senators and Representatives
· Four LVC students have secured highly competitive paid PA House Bipartisan Legislative Fellowships.
· One student interned at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC
· Three have held placements in the office of US Congressman Holden (Lebanon and Harrisburg offices)
· One intern was placed at the District Office of U.S. Congressman Murtha.
· A student interned with the fall 2006 Democratic Coordinated Election Campaign,
· One student interned as an organizer with the Obama primary election campaign and subsequently with the fall '08 Barack Obama Presidential Campaign
· Four students have interned at the Republican Party of Pennsylvania’s main office.
· Further, during the past four years, Political Science majors have been placed with a number of:
     o Interest groups (Common Cause, Sierra Club, the Lincoln Institute),
     o Lobbyists
     o Media organizations (CBS Boston, WGAL Lancaster),
     o State and local government offices (PA Office of International Business Development, Dauphin County Clerk, District Attorney offices),
     o Community groups (Domestic Violence Initiative, Aids Community Alliance). Additional internship resources for political science majors are available from the American Political Science Association at: http://www.apsanet.org/content_11599.cfm


History and Historical Communications Internships:
Since the spring of 2006 students from the History and Historical Communications majors have enjoyed placements with several museums, media organizations, and archives; Students placed with Museums have received diverse training in cataloging and tracing the chain of ownership of donated, borrowed, or purchased artifacts, conducting museum tours and associated in-museum classroom instruction for school field trips, and researching and describing items to be displayed in upcoming special exhibitions (one student was commissioned by a museum to prepare an educational video to be featured in a special exhibition).
· One student was able to arrange a library archival internship while studying for a semester in Italy.
· One student secured a prestigious Pennsylvania House of Representatives Archival Fellowship,
· A history major completed a summer archival internship with the Watkinson Special Collections Library at Trinity College CT.
· Five students have interned with the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey
· Two have interned at Cornwall Iron Furnace
· One at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum.
· One at the Pennsylvania State Police Museum at Hershey
· Historical Communications students have also been placed with media organizations, including WGAL, Source Media, and the LVC Office of Media Relations.

Pre-Law internships:
Law office internships allow Pre-law students to have a better grasp of a lawyer’s life (all to often glamorized in movies and on TV) and to observe how the workload of most lawyers is organized. Most interns have thrived as a result of their legal placements, forming long-term friendships with supervising lawyers and receiving career guidance and letters of recommendation when applying to law school. Students placed with Mid-Penn Legal services (since spring 2006 LVC has placed ten interns with various office of this legal services organization) experience directly how lawyers are able to act as advocates for the poorest and most vulnerable populations – providing socially significant legal assistance to those seeking Protection From Abuse Orders, those needing counsel in custody disputes, those facing aggressive landlords, and those requiring bankruptcy guidance when oppressed by debilitating indebtedness. The following list is offered as a representative sample of the pre-law internships recently available to LVC students:

· Mid-Penn Legal Services
· Office of the Legal Counsel to the President Pro Tem of the PA State Senate, Harrisburg,
· Feather & Feather Law Office, Annville,
· Manke, Wagner, Spreha, & McQuillan Law Office, Harrisburg
· County D.A. offices in Onandaga, NY and Harrisburg, PA
· Piontek Law Office, Hershey,
· Stock & Leader Law, Lancaster
· Engler Law Office, Lebanon
· Office of the Attorney General, State of New Jersey
· Public Defender’s Office of Lebanon County, Lebanon
· Schutjer Bogar, Harrisburg