Research Internships
In addition to receiving internship credits for working with an outside agency, student may also receive credit for doing research work with a faculty member in the department.
The goal of the research internship is to provide students with a “hands-on” research experience that includes exposure to methodological, substantive, or policy-related issues
- Students must be in good standing with the University.
- Students must be registered for the semester in which the internship is completed. No retroactive internship credits will be granted.
- Students must have completed at least 60 credit hours prior to the research internship.
- Students must have completed research methods (SOC 207 or CRIM 250W), with a letter grade of a “B” or better.
- Students must complete a minimum of 150 hours during the semester to earn 3 credits.
- Students must arrange to be supervised by the faculty adviser.
To inquire further about Research Internships, please contact the Undergraduate Studies and Internship Coordinator using the information below
- 211 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802
- sociology@psu.edu
- 814-865-2527
- 814-863-7216
Help a Professor with Their Research
You can learn a lot and gain valuable professional experience from helping a professor with their research as a research assistant. For example, you will learn about the subject you are researching, about how the sociological research process works, and about professional skills such as building relationships, participating in meetings, professional communication, and time management. Research assistants may do a variety of tasks such as using the library to look for articles and books on the topic, writing summaries of past research, coding online articles into a spreadsheet database, helping to get a survey ready to administer, or getting data ready to analyze statistically. You will work hard and in the end you will have gained a relationship with a faculty member or graduate students enhanced skills that will help you in many occupations and in life, and perhaps earned course credit.
To learn more about opportunities to be a research assistant you can contact a faculty member whose class you enjoyed or whose research interests you. Find more information about faculty members’ research interests here. You can also learn about research opportunities by contacting the sociology advisers and by looking for e-mail announcements from the sociology majors/minors listserv. These are e-mails from L-SOC-MAJORS@LISTS.PSU.EDU. Your sociology adviser can help you complete the necessary forms and decide about earning course credits.