Scourfield McLauchlan, Incorporating Internships into Undergraduate Political Science Coursework, Page 3
INTRODUCTION
Political Science Departments across the country offer a variety of outstanding internship
programs – in their local communities, in their respective state capitals, in Washington, D.C., and
abroad.
Often these programs are optional and offered independent of the core curriculum
requirements. The focus of this paper is to explore the benefits of incorporating internships
within the curriculum – and to encourage political scientists to think about ways of incorporating
experiential learning and service learning into their regular course offerings.
In this paper I will discuss the impact of a required internship component in two courses I
taught in 2004: one was an upper level seminar and the other an introductory lecture course. In
each case, the experiential learning component had a dramatic impact on the students’
understanding of and appreciation for the subject matter as well on the students’ interest in
participating in government and their willingness to take an active role as citizens.
During the Spring 2004 semester, I developed The Road to the White House, an upper
level seminar about presidential campaigns that included a10-day intensive internship in New
Hampshire in the days leading up to the first-in-the-nation primary. Twenty-one students
participated in this course; they worked on seven campaigns in three cities in New Hampshire.
During the Fall 2004 semester, I included a campaign internship as a part of the course
requirement in my introductory level American National Government course. Twenty-six
students interned on eight campaigns in Tampa Bay.
After reviewing the logistics, subject matter, and results of adding a service learning
component to each of these courses, I conclude that there are measurable benefits to
incorporating experiential learning components within core political science coursework.
Convention