The Department of Economics allows qualified students to receive academic credit toward their major for experience with businesses, government agencies, or appropriate non-profit organizations. The internship is intended to be a capstone experience in the major where students apply their economic knowledge in the workplace and relate the knowledge and skills they learn in the classroom to the real world.

Qualifications for Enrollment in the Internship Program

Students must (1) be juniors or seniors, (2) be majoring in Applied Economics or Economics, and (3) have completed all core and supporting course requirements.

Qualifying Placements

The work experience may be compensated or uncompensated, but it must be relevant to the student’s program of study in economics. The internship is intended as an integral part of the economics major and is not simply a work/study program. To receive academic credit for the internship, students must be given meaningful assignments clearly related to the primary function of the organization with which they are placed. Academic credit cannot be awarded for placements that require principally secretarial or clerical duties; sales, whether retail or financial, or solicitation of sales prospects including "cold calling"; or even professional responsibilities outside the scope of economics.

Course Requirements

Students register in the internship semester for ECO 4922, "Professional Development in Economics," and ECO 4944, "Field Study in Economics." Both courses are delivered entirely on-line so that students may accept internship placements anywhere in the world and simultaneously complete the course requirements.

Students whose work assignment totals at least 20 hours per week may receive 6 hours credit (3 hours for each course). Students whose work assignment is 10-19 hours per week receive 3 hours credit (2 hours for ECO 4922 and 1 hour for ECO 4944). [Note: Students in the Economics major may not receive more than three hours credit regardless of the number of hours of work.]

ECO 4922, Professional Development in Economics: The
Professional Development course is an academic course related
to the internship
experience. Students are required to complete a set of assignments.
Students enrolled for six hours credit also complete a research
paper that integrates their classroom knowledge and their work
experience.

ECO 4944, Field Study in Economics: The Field Study
course requires students to submit a weekly description of
their internship activities,
duties, and responsibilities. At the end of the semester, students
submit a paper that describes in detail the tasks they performed
during the internship and discusses the skills and information
required to accomplish each task.

Finding an Internship Placement

Students are responsible for locating their own internship placement and for ensuring that it is a qualifying placement. An important part of the internship experience is for students to locate their own placement opportunity and to make all necessary arrangements. All internships for credit must be approved in advance by the Undergraduate Director. Students should not commit to a placement without prior approval.

The FSU Career Center can often provide assistance to students seeking internships. The University of Wisconsin also has links to a number of internship and employment opportunities on its undergraduate website.

Selected Internship Placements of FSU Economics Students

Here is a list of places that economics students have interned. Some of these were by special arrangement or though prior individual contacts that the student had, and are not likely to be available to anyone else, but some of them have been home to more than one student and may even have some kind of intern program.

Summit Financial, Inc.,	Tallahassee, FL
LINQ Financial Group,	Coral Gables, FL
Capital City Trust Co.,	Tallahassee, FL
Advantage One Mortgage Corp.,	Maitland, FL
Western International Securities,	Tallahassee, FL
Morgan Stanley,	Tallahassee, FL
Allied Home Mortgage Capital Corp.,	Wakefield, MA
Social Security Administration,	Port Richey, FL
Merrill Lynch,	Tallahassee, FL
U.S Mission to the European Union,	Brussels, Belgium
UBS/Pain Webber,	Stuart, FL
Moya Group Consulting/Lobbying,	Tallahassee, FL
Economic Development Department,	City of Tallahassee
Florida Department of Managment Services,	Tallahassee, FL
SunTrust Bank,	Tallahassee, FL
Florida Workers Compensation Insurance Guaranty Assn.,	Tallahassee, FL
RMPK Funding,	Jupter, FL
The Washington Center (organized summer intern program),	Washington, D.C.
Mowell Financial Group,	Tallahassee, FL
SupraTelecom,	Tallahassee, FL
Bureau of Export Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce,	Washington, D.C.
Northwestern Mutual Financial,	Tallahassee, FL
Salomon Smith Barney,	Washington, D.C.
ERS,	Tallahassee, FL
Florida Department of Administration,	Tallahassee, FL