Summer Internships for SAS Students
Internships are an important part of learning at the School of Advanced Study (SAS). It enriches the educational experience of students, allowing them not only to take the first steps in realizing their career trajectory, but also to feel the value of themselves and their knowledge.
Why do I need an internship after the 3rd year of study?
At the end of the 3rd year, SAS students have a fairly broad multidisciplinary outlook, universal skills and knowledge base in their training profile, which means they can already apply them in practice. Thus, internships give students a safe professional experience before entering “adult life”, where the concept of responsibility for results is on a radically different level. It is important to realize this transition as early as possible. Along with the practical component, during the internship students find answers to many pressing questions about themselves and their area of professional interest: what does this area really look like fr om the inside? Do my expectations coincide with reality? Am I really interested in doing this or should I make a bias in another direction? What am I strong in and what am I weak in? What knowledge do I still need to improve?
In addition, students get the opportunity to:
Hone their communication and teamwork skills within an unfamiliar team — with different values and competencies. If in SAS these skills are developed by everyone in the course of their studies, what about with new colleagues wh ere, for example, one always works alone and the second prioritizes other tasks? Understand your professional interests more deeply, so that you can build your future educational and career trajectory on this basis. Start forming a network of valuable contacts in a particular field — in the future, this will help you navigate career opportunities more easily. Declare yourself as a good beginner, and at the end of the internship either receive an offer or prove yourself as a competent worker. This can contribute to future employment — not necessarily with the organization where the internship took place. Fill your resume with meaningful experience. Employers are generally looking for experienced candidates, and it is internships that can close this need for the recruiter, who acts as a buffer between the company and the student.
How is the process of selecting an organization for an internship organized?
Not many organizations willingly accept students for internships: new employees (even if temporary) require comprehensive attention, and mentoring is not developed everywhere. In the meantime, the intern should not only be instructed in detail on tasks, but also be in constant communication with him/her, while at the same time observing whether he/she is suitable for further cooperation. An internship for the sake of an internship can turn out to be both a waste of time and premature disappointment in a particular field, so it is important to choose an organization that is interested in working with young professionals. Thus, this year SAS training office has compiled a list of reliable partner organizations for students, ready for fruitful cooperation in the summer. At the same time, students can also find internship places on their own. Everything depends on their interests. For example, our graduate Arseniy Osokin talked about this in his interview. A great example can also be a story about research expeditions of third-year students: we recommend reading the article about the project to improve the city park in Tyukalinsk. An important condition in such a case is that the “work” place corresponds to the profile of SAS training. After the internship, students submit a report on the work done and knowledge learned.
Case: summer internship at Garage Academy
This year SAS students Alsu Battalova and Yulia Arkhipova completed their summer internship at Garage Academy, the base department of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. Garage Academy is a SAS partner, and this was their first experience of working with students as part of their internship. Alsu and Yulia chose this organization for a reason: both of them, firstly, are studying at the “Cultural Studies major,” and secondly, they participate in the SAS Excellence Track program. Thus, they combined their academic and professional interests. We asked female students to share their impressions of working at Garage Academy.
Alsu Battalova: “This year, as part of SAS Excellence Track, I participated in the organization of the First Year Topics nuclear course: I drafted and graded part of the assignments and helped first-year students develop their final projects. At Garage Academy, I saw an opportunity to see the process of creating their educational courses and programs. During my internship, I was able to learn more about how graduate programs are created and promoted. I worked on tasks as part of an enrollment campaign and activities outside of Garage Academy. For example, I analyzed abstracts and information fr om the discussions of the Independent Bookstores Convention at the Peredelkino House of Creativity, and worked with partners to promote and distribute promotional materials. Thanks to these tasks, I explored the city and visited cool non-touristy places, including the bookstores that participated in the discussion. The internship gave me unique opportunities — to analyze the methods and results of Garage Academy's work with external partners, to look at the work with the target audience, to get acquainted with independent bookstores in the country and learn how their work, various financial and economic aspects, from their founders and managers. All of this will come in handy for me as a cultural researcher. A pleasant bonus was the gifts at the end of the internship — books from Garage Publishing House, among which there were books required for our major's core courses.”
Yulia Arkhipova: “My academic interests, formed during my studies at SAS, are mainly in the field of education - more precisely, the philosophy of education and experimental teaching and learning practices that began to take shape in the last 20-30 years. When I was faced with the question of wh ere to do my academic internship in the spring, I was of course inspired by the idea that it would align with my academic interests. I wanted to intern with a team that cared about the same things I cared about. Garage Academy is about practice-oriented education, bridging the academic tradition with the experience of current art practitioners. I was interested to see how they work from the inside, to learn from their experience and to try to solve their current problems with the team. One of these tasks was to collect and systematize materials and data about Garage Academy's activities for subsequent use in projects both at Garage Academy itself and at Garage Museum. This was very useful because, on the one hand, I got to know more about the processes within the organization and the events it held. On the other hand, this task put me in a very cool context and gave me a basis for a tighter contact with the team and my work in general. In addition, I was able to practice and develop my research skills learned during my studies at SAS.”