Undergraduate Internships
Learn about internship opportunities as a History Major at the University of Maryland.
Why do an internship?
- Explore a potential career
- Start networking and building your resume
- Apply historical knowledge and skills
- One-on-one contact with a UMD history professor
- Discover your strengths (and weaknesses)
- Break up your routine and get off campus
"My history internship allowed me to explore the ways that history ties into my other interests and career goals. It also gave me the opportunity to interact one-on-one with a faculty member. The rewards in both the workplace and on paper were well worth the effort."
-— Lisa Grabowski, America Reads * America Counts intern
History Alumni Mentoring Night
Video of 2022 annual History Alumni Mentoring Night
History Alumni Mentoring Night
About Internships
Guidelines
The Department of History allows undergraduates to take up to six hours of credits in historically-related internships, of which three hours may be counted toward the 39 hours in history required for graduation. All internships must comply with the following standards:
- Students taking internships for credit must be of at least junior standing (having completed 60 credit hours), and have an overall average of 2.5 or better.
- Internships must have a direct relationship to the work of understanding, interpreting, presenting or preserving history and/or historical evidence.
- Student internships must be approved by the department internship coordinator, who will suggest to students an appropriate faculty mentor for the internship course. An internship course will be approved only if a faculty supervisor is available.
- The faculty mentor must closely monitor the internship: devise the reading, reflective papers and/or research essay required of the student; meet regularly with the student intern and provide the internship coordinator with an evaluation of the student's work at the end of the project.
- Writing Component (50% of final grade for course): All internship courses require students to submit either a 10 page essay on a historical topic related to the internship (15-20 pages if 4-6 credits) OR two five-page reflective papers based on their experiences at the internship site (for 4-6 credits, additional assignments will be at the discretion of the internship coordinator and faculty mentor). The reflective essays should not simply summarize internship duties, but should apply the disciplinary lens of the history major to ask questions about the organization, museum, archive or profession itself, its practices, populations served, skills required of the intern and progress made by the intern in achieving specific goals/objectives.
- All interns must also visit Career Services to produce an updated resume, attend one Career Services event and write a two-page letter to future history interns about their experiences and how being a history major both prepared them for their internship duties and was enhanced by their professional experience.
- The internship coordinator will provide an evaluation form for the on-site supervisor to fill out at the end of the semester and use the performance evaluation to calculate the other half of the student’s final grade.
- Internship Credit Hours
- Three credit hours requires a minimum of 135 hours at the internship site. Student interns must set up a meeting schedule with their faculty supervisor and meet at least every other week throughout the semester.
- Four credit hours requires a minimum of 180 hours at the internship site. Students have a choice of assignments and due dates are to be determined jointly by the intern and faculty supervisor and approved by the Internship Coordinator.
- Five credit hours requires a minimum of 225 hours at the internship site.
- Six credit hours requires a minimum of 270 hours at the internship site.
- The faculty mentor and internship coordinator will jointly grade the internship course, giving roughly equal weight to the supplemental aspects of the course–readings, papers and/or reports–and to the evaluation of the student's on-site supervisor.
- The department's internship coordinator will advise students about possibilities and requirements, make suggestions for faculty mentors and approve all internship course projects.
Undergraduate Internship Possibilities in D.C.
This list includes possible internship choices, but students may also find their own internship.
- Alliance for Justice
- Amnesty International
- Ashoka
- Bread for the World
- Center for International Policy, Washington, DC
- Center for Progressive Leadership
- Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC
- Federal Trade Commission
- Goldring Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life
- Heritage Foundation
- Hillel Foundation for Jewish Life
- Historical Society of Washington DC
- History Associates Incorporated
- IMPACT Silver Spring
- Institute for Women’s Policy Research
- Jewish Historical Society, Washington DC
- Latin American Youth Center, Washington, DC
- Library of Congress
- Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, DC
- NASA History Division
- National Council for Preservation Education
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC
- National Park Service
- Nation Postal Museum
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Museum of American Jewish Military History
- National Portrait Gallery
- Naval Historical Center
- Smithsonian Institution Program for Asian Pacific American Studies
- Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History
- Student Conservation Association
- United States Postal Museum, Washington, DC
- United States Holocaust Museum, Washington, DC
- United States House of Representatives--please look up who represents your state, or go to this link.
- United States Information Agency, Washington, DC
- United States Senate--please look up who represents your state, or go to this link.
- United States Senator Charles Schumer’s (New York ) Office, Washington, DC
- U.S. Army Center for Military History
- Washington, D.C. Preservation League
- WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics & Ritual)
- White House Historical Association
- Women for Women International
- Women’s Policy, Inc.
- Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
- United States Supreme Court, (Judicial Internships)
- U.S. Supreme Court, Judicial Internships (History and Art History Internships)
Undergraduate Internship Possibilities in College Park
This list includes possible internship choices, but students may also find their own internship.
- America Reads* America Counts
- College Park Airport
- Greenbelt Museum
- Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation*
- Maryland PIRG
- National History Day, UMCP
- National Archives II, College Park, MD
- National Public Broadcasting Archives, UMCP
- START
- United States Attorney’s Office, Greenbelt, MD
- University of Maryland, College Park- Smith Performing Arts Center
Other Nearby Undergraduate Internship Possibilities
This list includes possible internship choices, but students may also find their own internship.
- Baltimore Museum of Industry
- Buffalo Bill Historical Center
- CASA de Maryland
- Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park
- Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
- Civil War Preservation Trust, Arlington, VA
- Claude Moore Colonial Farm, VA
- Gilder Lehrman American History Internship Program
- Hammond-Harwood House, Annapolis
- Historic Annapolis Foundation
- Historic Deerfield Massachusetts
- History Factory, Chantilly, VA
- Lost Towns Project (Anne Arundel County Archeology)
- Lowell, MA National Historical Park
- Manassas Museum System (VA)
- Maryland Center for History and Culture
- Maryland General Assembly
- Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore
- Maryland House of Delegates
- Maryland State Archives, Annapolis
- Montgomery County, Maryland Historical Society
- Montgomery County, Maryland Agricultural Park
- Rowman & Littlefield (Publishers based in Lanham, MD)
- Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD
Director
Julie Taddeo
Research Professor, History
Affiliate Faculty, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
2140 Francis Scott Key Hall
College Park
MD,
20742