Application numbers for Career Services summer internship grants hit unprecedented levels this year. The office received more than double the normal number of applications from students seeking funding for unpaid internships.
Over 120 students applied for the grants this year, according to Career Services Director Jean Papalia.
"The grant process is highly competitive and this year, even more so," Papalia said in an e-mail.
Career Services gave out 36 internship grants this year, each valued at $3,500.
"The evaluation of applications involves a range of factors which are carefully scrutinized," Papalia said. "Although we wish we could have funded all applicants, we are confident that the decision-making process was fair and equitable."
Twenty-five grants were set aside for internships in the nonprofit or public sector, six were for private-sector internships for students with demonstrated financial need and four were for entrepreneurial leadership internships. One was issued to a student in a combined Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Fine Arts program.
The deadline for applications fell on April 3; applicants had to have secured unpaid internships by the time they applied.
"We clearly devote a great deal of time and effort to this very important and rigorous task," Donna Esposito, associate director of Career Services, said in an e-mail. "No one person accepts or denies applications. We look at a variety of factors and carefully evaluate all applications."
Each student must work a minimum of 350 hours over the course of the internship, so the grant averages out to $10 per hour, Papalia said.
The university's endowment, the Tufts Diversity Fund and the entrepreneurial leadership program fund the grants, according to Papalia.
Junior Amy Hart received a grant for an internship with Grameen America, a nonprofit microfinance organization. She said that the Career Services application was fair but lengthy.
"They just want to know about your internship and the responsibilities you'll have and how it will contribute to your career goals," Hart said. "It is a pretty extensive application, though."
Hart said that students are most likely to have success with their grant applications if they find internships they are truly invested in.
"My advice is to choose an internship that you're wholeheartedly and specifically interested in so that you can convey that drive and focus in your grant application," Hart said in a follow-up e-mail.
The Grameen America internship fits well with Hart's career goals; she is an International Relations major concentrating in economic development.
"I want to work for an organization in the future that works toward development goals in a practical way that actually does something," Hart said. "This is an organization that actually does that."
Junior Rebecca Levin-Epstein also received a grant for an internship that relates to her desired career. Levin-Epstein, a Spanish and biopsychology double major on a pre-med track, will be interning in the Radiation Oncology Department at Boston Medical Center, the primary teaching affiliate of the Boston University School of Medicine.
The grant application, she said, was "pretty straightforward" and allowed her to display how the internship related to her career goals.
At Boston Medical Center, Levin-Epstein will be translating for Spanish-speaking patients and shadowing Ariel Hirsch, a doctor in the department.
She said that it was helpful when applying for her grant to "hammer out the details" of her internship with her internship supervisor. The grant application requires a "Learning Contract," in which supervisors display the internship's goals and objectives.
"I'm sort of hoping as part of my internship to kind of absorb some of [Hirsch's] patient interaction style," Levin-Epstein said.
Levin-Epstein will participate in research over the summer focusing on gender and education bias. She also plans to devise her own research project looking at patient depression during and after therapy.
Career Services decided on the $3,500 figure after looking at other grant programs at Tufts and at peer institutions, according to Papalia.
"We might consider lowering the grant award next year," Papalia said. "However, the tradeoff of this would be that while this would allow us to award a few more grants, each one would be considerably smaller."
The amount of the grants, she said, "allows grant recipients to undertake substantive, full-time internships."
