The Internships and Experiential Learning class helps PhD students and postdocs to prepare, find, and succeed in experiential opportunities beyond academic research. The goal of the class is to provide students and postdocs with hands-on experience in appropriate career environments so that they will make informed decisions about which of the many career paths to pursue post graduation. The program consists of two main components: the class, and support applying for and succeeding in an experiential opportunity.

About our students and postdocs:

• ​Participants in the class are students and postdocs in good-standing in one of the following graduate programs at UCSF: Bioengineering, BMI, BMS, Biophysics, CCB, DSCB, Epidemiology, Global health, History of health sciences, Medical Anthropology, Neuroscience, Nursing, OCS, PSPG, Sociology, or TETRAD.
• Students eligible for full-time internships will be advanced graduate students (at minimum having passed all their doctoral qualifying exams)

What kinds of opportunities our students and postdocs are looking for:

• ​Class participants are interested in a range of careers, including: research in biotech/pharma; business relating to science; law; science policy; science communication and science education.
• Part-time, flexible opportunities are of special interest, as we have many students and postdocs who may be unable to do a full-time internship but are very interested in gaining experience. 
• Our students and postdocs value mentorship; flexibility; the opportunity to work on real projects and problems; and a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Full-time internships should be for a period of 3 months and can occur in the Fall, Winter, or Summer academic quarters. Recently graduated students sometimes also choose to complete internships. They will have more flexibility as to the start and length of their internships.

How we can work together:

• Our class does not offer 1:1 matching between internship sites and class participants. Students and postdocs are responsible for identifying and applying for opportunities themselves. 
• Each spring, we hold an Opportunities Mixer during the class. At this speed networking event, we promote internship and experiential learning opportunities in many areas. We gladly invite inquiries from employers with opportunities in these fields who would like to participate in this event. If you would potentially be interested in participating, please contact us.
• We also invite employers to share internship opportunities with UCSF students and postdocs throughout the year, by posting them on our Opportunities Board.
• If you would like us to publicize current opportunities to participants in the Internships and Experiential Learning class, as well as past class participants who may be interested, please post them on the board and contact us.

Questions?

Review our most frequently asked questions, or contact us.