Written by Sian Salazar | August 2, 2024
Disclaimer: The information in this post is based off my own personal experience, and as such is more helpful for Dornsife and Keck students.
As a political science and global health double major, I have been lucky enough to access opportunities offered by two distinct USC schools: Dornsife School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, and Keck School of Medicine.
Something in particular that I have noted after nearly four years of pursuing internships and summer jobs in my field of choice (pre-law, and unfortunately for my wallet, public-sector) is that opportunities are rarely paid. When they are, wage tends to average around $15-25 an hour. While this is certainly nothing to snub your nose at, the fact is that interns tend to seek positions in expensive cities: New York City. Washington, D.C. San Francisco or Palo Alto. Even Los Angeles itself. And these companies expect interns to house, feed, and clothe themselves on essentially a minimum wage salary.
Another thing that companies love to offer is stipends. And while $4,000 or $5,000 stipends might sound nice in the moment, most student intern for 10-12 weeks, working 40 hours a week. The stipend ends up paying well under minimum wage, sometimes coming out to as little as $5 or $6 an hour.
What does this mean? Well, it means that interning has for very long been an opportunity that only the most well-off students can take on. Many intern experiences are reverse-structured, meaning that the student pays the employer for the privilege of sitting around morosely in the office. What many students don’t know, however, is that most schools and career centers offer funding to cover living expenses for internships and other opportunities.
- EXL Funding. The EXL Office offers funding for hands-on learning opportunities, like participating in conferences (travel can be expensive!), service-learning opportunities (and anything can be framed as service-learning if you know how to pitch it correctly), and overseas studies. Yes, this includes internships abroad.
- SOAR/SURF/PURF Funding. These are designed to cover expenses for students looking to conduct research, either under the guidance of a Dornsife faculty member (SOAR/SURF) or independent research, like a 400-level course or honor’s thesis (PURF). And yes, these are accessible over the summer.
- Center for the Political Future Scholarships. My personal favorite, the CPF Scholarships, which encourage students in politically-oriented fields to take on internships in a whole host of different cities. These cities include Sacramento, the capital of California, New York City, Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital, and of course, Los Angeles. They will cover either the cost of housing or the cost of summer credits to take POSC 395, a directed internship course of 2-4 credits (however many you want!) that will count towards your degree.
- Dornsife Continuing Student Scholarships. These are not scholarships directly meant to cover intern or living expenses, but they can work indirectly to relieve such expenses by helping reduce the overall tuition that you pay during the regular semester. There are many, many scholarships available through the CSS program, and you only need to submit one application to be considered for the vast majority of them. These have greatly aided my undergraduate education experience, and I can’t recommend them enough.
- Travel Conference Fund (Keck Undergraduate Students Only). Similar to the EXL fund, this travel conference fund is designed to allow undergraduate students to participate more fully in events like research conferences. It provides $1,000 worth of funding to cover travel and living expenses for a research conference for a student to attend or even present at!