Students enrolled in both the 1-year Course-Based Masters program and 2-year Thesis-Based stream are required to complete a 12 week (full time hours) internship.
These placements, which usually take place over the summer (beginning in late April or early May), allow the internship host organization to benefit from the considerable policy research, report writing, and critical thinking capacity of a graduate student while providing interns with invaluable experience in a real-world work environment. It is important to note that in most cases the internships are fully or partially funded by the host organization.
Over the past six years our students have completed placements in a wide variety of areas. Many of these internships take the form of policy analysis/comparison while others involve students conducting research in new areas of inquiry of interest to their host organization. All internship placements must have an Environmental Policy-related component. In some case we can help the host organization to articulate the environmental policy component.
Our students have conducted internships with a variety of host organizations including Kruger/Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, Pennecon Construction, local NGOs, and municipal, provincial, and federal government departments (including Parks Canada, DFO, and NRCAN), and many others. The foci of these internships are also quite diverse and have covered topics such as moose management, environmental impact assessment, the ISO 14K system, mineral exploration, forest planning, corporate social responsibility, land reclamation, and Aboriginal engagement policy.
Some examples of recently-completed internships include:
- A placement with the Provincial Department of Fisheries and Land Resources. In this case the intern was tasked with identifying, reviewing, and evaluating the merits of big game hunting license allocation strategies in jurisdictions across Canada (a cross jurisdictional policy scan). This scan was used by the department in their review of NL’s license allocation process as it provided information on both the process and merits of other license allocation strategies used in other areas.
- A student worked with the Shorefast Foundation of Fogo Island. In this case the student conducted a review of the Foundation’s New Ocean Ethic and identified connections with relevant federal fisheries policies and how such polices might influence the implementation of the set of initiatives set out in the Ethic.
- An intern helped establish a more effective recycling and composting program for a local municipality
Another intern evaluated opportunities for and the efficacy of Indigenous engagement by a department of the Federal government