Career Development

The UIS Career Development Center helps students turn their strengths and abilities into success by providing resources, collaborating with partners, and building counseling and advising relationships. We empower all students to help them prepare and adapt to lifelong change as they pursue meaningful personal and professional success.

Career Development Center

Federal Work Study

Earn While you Learn

FWS is a need-based financial aid award that assist students with meeting their educational expenses while allowing students to gain meaningful work experience.

Federal Work Study

Undergraduate Internships

UIS provides academically-sponsored learning experiences through internships or projects. These experiential opportunities provide valuable learning experiences for qualified students:

  • Internships and Prior Learning (IPL)
    • IPL provides an academically sponsored learning experience that gives all undergraduate students an opportunity to learn from the community.
  • Campus Recreation Employment
    • Positions are available through the University work-study program and part-time employment. Employees learn valuable skills that will serve them throughout their lifetime.

Graduate Internships

In keeping with the missions of UIS and the Center for State Policy and Leadership, it is the goal of the Office of Graduate Intern Programs to seek experiential learning opportunities at state and local government agencies that enhance the development of ethical, competent, and engaged graduate students. The program fosters the University’s commitment for academic excellence, enriching individual lives, making a difference in the world, and lifelong learning.

Graduate Intern Opportunities

Graduate Intern Programs

These assistantship, fellowship, and internship programs provide significant funding opportunities in addition to experiential learning for graduate students:

  • Graduate Assistantships
    • On-campus assistantships, including research, teaching, pre-professional, and graduate assistantships, offer opportunities to develop and apply skills across a broad spectrum of UIS working 20 hours per week during the fall and spring semesters.
  • Graduate Public Service Intern (GPSI) Program
    • As part of a two-year master’s degree program, interns work 20 hours per week during the regular academic year and full-time during the summer with an agency of Illinois state government.
  • Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program
    • This program provides insight into the legislative process by providing a total of 24 internships in the capitol building. It is both the work place and the classroom for five legislative analyst positions with each of the four partisan leadership staffs, three research positions and one science writing position with the Legislative Research Unit.
  • Public Affairs Reporting Program
    • As part of the Public Affairs Reporting graduate degree program, students serve in an internship during the spring semester. Each PAR student works for six months as a full-time reporter for a news organization in the State Capitol, under the direct supervision and mentorship of the outlet’s bureau chief.