Internship Opportunities

Enterprising and creative students can pursue their interests using Spanish, French, or Italian in an engaging professional or service-oriented
activity.  They can earn Independent Study credits when working with a professor on the project.
 

Examples from the Burlington Area:
 

Importing to Vermont
A student did an internship and earned credit by working in Spanish with a local importer of beverages from Spain and other European or Spanish-speaking countries.  (Summer 2000, UVM student Mara Kevan).

Service Learning Options
Qualified students can arrange volunteer internships assisting local service organizations in activities such as translations and tutoring.  Students are invited to find worthy projects where they can use their language skills and learn about the interfacing of cultures in our area.

Sculpting with Natural Materials in Italy
A UVM Italian student who is majoring in Environmental Studies and minoring in Italian and Studio Art will do an apprenticeship while studying abroad in Parma.  The artist with whom she will work specializes in natural materials (spring 2003, UVM Italian student Sophia Smith).

Service Internships in Puerto Rico
A few Spanish students are currently investigating with their professor opportunities for internships or volunteer work in Puerto Rico.  Possibilities include, but are not limited to: 1) working with a grassroots, community action group that addresses localized environmental reforms;  2) interning in the legal offices of a law group that largely serves disadvantaged members of Puerto Rican society and also works for social change; 3) interning in a socially conscious investment firm.  In order to earn UVM credit, expectations and requirements (such as a report on accomplishments and future plans) will be discussed with the professor before departing for Puerto Rico.

Individual or Small-Group Research Opportunities

In keeping with the guidelines for an Independent Study, students can suggest a research project to a professor (examples below).  In other cases, professors suggest to a group of students in a class some topics that they, as independent researchers, might want to continue investigating and for which they might develop a project (examples below).  Some potential topics might dovetail with a research project their professor is working on and in which he or she has interested the students (examples below).
 

Opportunities for Independent Research Projects in a Class-Based Environment
 

Web-based historical research project in French 105
These student-generated projects, accomplished in pairs, take advantage of the wealth of information available on the internet.  Students create fully researched web pages on historical topic -- whether a monument, a building, a place or a region, a cultural institution, historical document, an artistic work, a tradition, or a popular idol.  Excellent student web-based research projects, initially presented to their peers in the class setting, will be selected for this additional APLE project.  With faculty guidance, participating students will create web pages.

Italian Digital Media Catalogue for the Language Resource Center
Currently, two Italian students who learned to build web pages in their Italian class last fall, are investigating Italian media while building a digital catalogue that will be available through the LRC.

Creative Expression in Spanish
This semester, in Spanish 202 students create individual characters whose lives they will write about as they do research on different aspects of the cultural life of the country in which their fictive character lives.  Individual essays and presentations to the class detail the cultural aspects uncovered through independent research.

Other Current or Recent Independent Research Projects
 

Research Studies While Abroad
In recent years, students in Spanish, Italian, and French have developed projects, with a professor, that they would then pursued while traveling and studying abroad.  While in the Dominican Republic, a Spanish student investigated “Santería:  el desarrollo y su futuro.”   Working in independent research projects, a student in French and another in Italian traveled to France and Italy to study the lives and work of African immigrants.  The former concentrated on Northern Africa and the latter on Sub-Saharan Africa.