Internships
Develop your skills outside the classroom
What is the MIP Internship?
The Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy supports student internships between their first and second year with organizations that work on international policy issues.
Funding
Funding is available to students for 10-week summer internships with various organizations and organizations anywhere in the world.
MIP Staff Guidance
The MIP office provides one-on-one advising and coaching on job search techniques, forwards student résumés to employers, and introduces students to Stanford alumni in their areas of interest.
Internship Highlight
Spencer Kim, Class of 2013, interned with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNDP Environment Team in Suva, Fiji
"UNDP's Fiji Multi-Country Office (MCO) supports ten Pacific Island Countries (PICs), including Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), Kiribati, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Nauru, Palau, Soloman Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu through knowledge and capacity development. I interned with the UNDP Environment Team, which strengthens the legal and institutional frameworks for sustainable development. In partnership with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Fiji MCO assists PICs with assessing climate change adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity conservation, sustainable land management, as well as implementing strategies from such assessments, identifying national capacitites to manage natural resources, and developing capacity to meet obligations to multilateral environment agreements.
I spent the summer reviewing the Sustainable Land Management projects of all PICs, a set of medium-sized projects implemented over a three-to-four year period by the UNDP Environment Team. These projects focus on building capacity and mainstreaming sustainable land management against land degradation caused by climate change and rapid population growth. Based on the evaluation reports, projects' challenges included overly ambitious goals, poor management of local stakeholders, inefficiences, and resources shortages.
Ultimately I realized that, despite these project limitations, UNDP is the most appropriate and reliable agency to implement large and long-term development policy and projects with PICs. The greatest benefit to me from my internship was the understanding I gained about the entire scope of UN project development - from project formulation to funding acquisition, execution, and terminal evaluation."
Past Internships
World Bank
Our students have interned with various groups and projects within the World Bank.
United Nations
Our students have interned with various groups within the UN, across the world.
Cologne Institute for Economic Research
One of our students interned in Cologne, Germany researching refugee resettlement and labor market integration.
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
One of our students interned with NOAA in Hawai´i to measure the socio-economic impacts of climate change.
Interested in having one of our students as an intern?
We invite companies and organizations to contact us to discuss the possibility of having one of our students intern with them. Please contact Kristin Southard for more information.