Internships in Politics, Advocacy and Public Service

PLSI 603/604

PLSI 603/604 is an opportunity for students to earn academic credit by interning in political or political adjacent fields, such as government, non-profit issue advocacy and community organizing.

In conjunction, PLSI 603 and 604 are worth four Political Science elective units:

• PLSI 603 (three-units) is the internship. Students are responsible for searching for and obtaining their internship placements. Participants will work 12-15 hours per week at instructor-approved organizations.
• PLSI 604 (one-unit) is an on-campus seminar comprising several mandatory meetings and internship-related written assignments.

Before registering for the course, students must attend an orientation meeting with the presiding instructor. Those who cannot attend the orientation should promptly arrange to meet with the instructor individually.

Students who attend the orientation will be granted priority registration status for the course.

As stated above, students are responsible for securing their internships. However, there are resources elsewhere on this page that will help guide them in their search.

PLSI 603/604 is conditional on instructor approval. Students who have not locked down an instructor-approved internship by the first week of the Spring semester will lose their registration in the course. Please note that you may not receive credit for this course after you have already worked for or interned at an organization.

For more information, please contact Prof. Jason McDaniel by email at mcdaniel@sfsu.edu.

PLSI 610/611

PLSI 610/611 is a four-unit judicial internship that pairs undergraduates with San Francisco Superior Court Judges. This internship is especially valuable for students planning to apply to law school. It is divided into two parts:

• PLSI 610 is the internship itself, a weekly ten-hour commitment at the courthouse, working directly with an SF judge and their staff (three units).
• PLSI 611 is the class, a weekly fifty-minute group meeting on campus with the presiding instructor (one unit).

Interested students should not register for the course in advance but instead email a PDF to Professor Nick Conway at nickconway@sfsu.edu before the end of the semester prior to the internship. The PDF should contain the following:

1. A one-page resume with your current contact information, and
2. A brief statement addressed to coordinating Judge Gail Dekreon on why you want to participate in the program, what you hope to gain from this internship, and how serving the San Francisco Superior Court fits in with your post-graduate careers. You should also indicate which court division(s) (criminal, civil, family, drug, veterans’, traffic, housing, juvenile, young adult) you want to work in and why.

Please note that PLSI 610/611 has limited seats and is generally competitive--no student is guaranteed an internship. Selected applicants will receive an add code during the first week of the semester when the internship takes place to register for the course. Students must apply by the deadline to be eligible for consideration; check with Prof. Conway for the specific deadlines.

For more information, please contact Professor Nick Conway by email at nickconway@sfsu.edu.