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Looking for ways to maximize your time abroad? An internship can provide you with even deeper cultural immersion while you gain valuable work experience.

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• Host Institutions
• Credit
• To Apply

The Academic Internship Program in Florence offers unique opportunities to students with intermediate to advanced knowledge of the Italian language to apply classroom learning to an actual work situation, explore career options, and develop professional skills while they earn academic credit.

Here are the basics:
• Applicants will have an interview in Florence with the Internship Program coordinator and a faculty sponsor during the week of Orientation in Florence, conducted in English (and, if appropriate, in Italian).
• If selected, the coordinator will match the student's academic background and goals to one of SU's many host institutions an arrange a meeting with the site supervisor of the selected host institution. Placements with specific institutions cannot be guaranteed.
• All placements are subject to a two-week trial period, during which time either party (student intern or participating host institution) may withdraw from the agreement.
• Each student intern works under the direct supervision of a faculty sponsor from Syracuse University in Florence and a site supervisor assigned by the host institution.
• Italian labor regulations require that all internships function on a non-paid, volunteer basis and must be completed within three months.

Internships in local municipal organizations, museums, libraries, academic institutions and social services are available to eligible students in such fields as Art History, Museum Studies, Media and Communications, Public Relations, Renaissance Studies, Sociology, Political Science, International Relations, Women's and Gender Studies, Education, Economics, Library Science, Italian Language and Culture, and Design. Graduate international affairs internships are available for qualified students in the fall semester.

Please remember however, that no specific placement with a given institution can be guaranteed. Students are placed where they can participate in projects where they can make themselves useful. Not all of the host institutions who accept interns have suitable projects or available office space at all times; however, there is always a wide range of internship positions for which to apply.

Three-credit internships are available during the fall and spring semesters (45 hours of work per academic credit earned for a minimum of three credits = 135 hours of internship commitment). Presence in the workplace can be organized over twelve weeks (usually two or three mornings a week), or over six weeks (usually five mornings a week for six weeks). The intern will also be assigned selected readings, writing assignments and reports by the faculty sponsor, and will have regular meetings with the site supervisor, the faculty sponsor, and the internship coordinator.

Students interested in an academic internship must complete the Internship Request Form of the application by the due date. Spring applicants must indicate whether they are applying for the extended semester intensive internship option.