Independent Studies and Internships

While all majors and minors at the College have “core curriculums,” and also classes that are different every semester that are taught by faculty, an often untraveled way to earn credit towards your particular major is via the independent study/internship route. Many departments at William and Mary make it incredibly easy to create your own independent study that can count towards your major. Speaking from experience, within the government department you can craft an independent study in conjunction with a faculty member to explore a topic of interest to you that might not have a class offered or that you want to engage with beyond the classroom setting on your own time. The internship can be 1 credit or 3 credits, with the work ‘output’ being different for each, but typically an independent study will culminate in a research paper. It’s a great route to take because it does not require formal classroom time and the work can be completed at your own pace; you also get to completely tailor the ‘course’ to whatever suits your interests. This upcoming semester I just set up to do an independent study on state legislative caucuses and how their influence and focus varies when their party is in the majority or minority within a legislative body. I contacted Professor John McGlennon, chair of the government department, with my interest because his academic specialty is state politics; he’s even an elected official himself.

My work will gain me 1 credit hour and be done on my own time with a set of readings devised by myself and by Professor McGlennon. The reason I chose to complete the independent study, however, provides a good segue into the next point of my post. “The Internship for Academic Credit” experience. I received an offer to continue and diversify my internship that I had this summer into the school year when I had free time. While I would have helped out my employer anyways, it is always good if you can get academic credit for it as well. Within a department, therefore, you can participate in an internship for academic credit much like you would set up an independent study, so long as it has an academic or research component attached to it. Within the government department, for example, up to 6 credits can be counted towards your major for any combination of independent studies/internships that you complete throughout the course of your time at William and Mary. So far I have completed 2 credit hours fulfilling an internship in the Virginia General Assembly this spring, and will have completed 3 when I finish my 1 credit independent study this fall. Within the government department, the process looks something like this:

http://www.wm.edu/as/government/undergraduate/independentstudy/

Just a heads up if you were interested in a subject but there wasn’t a class offered on it! Sometimes studying what you want can be easier than you think, and also helps you to develop great one-on-one relationships with faculty members who share your same academic interests. These faculty members then also become extremely aware of your ability to participate in research and write up a research paper, so if you needed a recommendation later on they might be able to supply an informed one for you to that end. With studies in general at William and Mary the sky is really the limit, and with variable course credits for how much time you are willing to invest in any particular individual endeavor, there’s a path of study that suits everybody’s needs.