Internships

The Program in Religious Studies encourages students to participate in internships that integrate academic knowledge and practical experiences. Internships combine off-campus work that provides significant learning in the area of religious studies with academic study supervised by a program faculty adviser.

Students completing a religious studies program internship must secure a religious studies faculty adviser and enroll in the internship course religious studies program 92a/b by completing the Form for Adding a 92a/b Internship Course (PDF) on the Registrar’s website.

Obligations

Students will meet regularly with their on-site adviser to discuss their internship obligations and observations. In addition, students will meet regularly with their Brandeis internship faculty adviser to discuss academic readings agreed to by the professor. Students are expected to keep a journal of field notes on the days on which they are on site in which they record their activities, observations, and analysis guided by a set of questions produced with the professor. Finally, students will write a paper or papers totaling at least 15 pages exploring major themes emerging from their work experience and robustly supported by academic literature on their topic of inquiry.

Criteria for Religious Studies Program Internships

Religious studies program internships must focus on one or more secular or religious sites or institutions where scholarly questions about religious belief, behavior, institutions, communities, clergy, music, art, architecture, texts, rituals, philosophy, ethics, or public/private engagement may be observed.

Internship topics may include: Religious textual interpretation; religious art, architecture, and/or music; the theology or philosophy that you discern in a specific religious institution or space; the public engagement of a religious body; the ethical priorities that you discern; social services provided by religious communities, or self-identified secular institutions that engage with religion in direct or indirect ways.

Process of Approval

Students will first meet with a faculty adviser and the on-site supervisor to arrange the details of the internship and completing the Form for Adding a 92a/b Internship Course (PDF) on the Registrar’s website. The student may need to append additional pages to the form. The student then submits the form to the Undergraduate Advising Head and to the Chair for approval prior to beginning the internship. After approval, the student can then submit the form to the Registrar.