Internships
To gain hands-on experience in sociology and criminology, we encourage you to complete an internship while studying at NIU. An internship gives you early insight into whether you really like a particular type of work. Sometimes an internship turns into a paid job after graduation.
We maintain a file of agencies that have sought interns in the past, which may need interns in the future. We often receive emails from organizations that are looking for interns, and you can visit our Teams site or Huskies Get Hired for internship listings. Attend a job fair. NIU hosts two internship fairs every year, one in the fall and one in the spring. You can also call an agency you are interested in and ask whether they take interns.
Frequently Asked Questions
You should do an internship after you've had several courses in your major, but before graduation. Generally, this means late in the junior year or early in the senior year. For many students the summer between their junior and senior years is ideal.
Some internships are paid, but most of the ones in public service agencies are not. The online listings through Huskies Get Hired indicate which positions are paid.
Minimally, you must be a sociology or criminology major in good academic standing. You must commit at least 120 hours of work to the internship with your agency supervisor and that plan must be approved by the sociology and criminology internship coordinator.
All students taking SOCI 390/CRIM 390 must register their internships with Career Services. This provides a record of your internship activities, generates a notation on your transcript and facilitates our obtaining an evaluation of your work from the agency supervisor. Visit Career Services to register an internship.
On the other hand, you may undertake an internship without seeking academic credit for the experience. Enrolling in SOCI 390/CRIM390 requires both an internship and the completion of the SOCI 390/CRIM 390 course requirements.
Yes, subject to the following constraints. First, you should only do one internship at a time. In addition, a second internship should normally be with an agency other than the one with which you did the first internship. Sometimes we will approve a second internship with the same agency, but this requires clear evidence that the second experience will be substantially different from the original.