The Internship Program

Students seeking a Masters’ of Public Health in the College of Social Sciences will be placed with health related organizations at the international, national, state, or local level for a 400-hour working experience. The internship should take place at the end of one year of classes. In some cases the intern will be paid a regular salary at the level of a beginning analyst.

The goal of the placement is to expose the student to the day to day experiences of working in a health related organization, setting priorities, teamwork, marshaling resources for problem solving, serving client needs, accepting and responding to feedback and learning how individuals’ visions and values shape the vision and values of an organization.  Many placements will be at the State of Florida's Department of Health or its associated and client agencies.

While students may work on a variety of tasks during their 400-hour experience, the expectation is that they will have one major project for which they are principally responsible.  It should be accompanied by appropriate project goals and success criteria, adequate instructions, supervision and feedback, interim products and deadlines, resources, and an identifiable product such as a report, presentation, briefing, hearing, web page, survey, or other product which reflects integration of analytical, organizational and presentation skills and makes appropriate use of the student’s academic training. 

Students should feel that they have undertaken a challenging project, marshaled resources, overcome obstacles and produced a worthwhile product that will help the organization achieve its goals.  Mere compilation of lists or sorting of files will not be considered adequate to meet the goals of the internship.

The internship program consists of a work schedule of 400 hours, divided into 10 weeks at 40 hours per week.  While most students choose to intern during the summer, individual arrangements can be made between students and employers, pending approval from the MPH department.

Interested students contact organizations directly to make arrangements. One exception is the Florida Department of Health, which prefers contact via the program faculty.  

Previous interns from our program have assisted with:

• Collection and analysis of infant mortality and low birth weight data by county and coalition
• Data collection on maternal and child health indicators used in Florida’s Title V Maternal and Child Health block grant
• Monitoring and reporting on legislative committee meetings
• Written analyses of bills proposed for consideration in the Florida legislative session

Internship Materials

• The Internship Objectives and required forms can be found on Blackboard
• Internship Brochure (PDF)