BU URBAN Internship Course
BI/EE/EH 795: Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health: From Research to Policy
Summer 2022 meetings: Wednesdays, 9:00 – 10:15 am over Zoom
Download Syllabus
Course description
This course prepares graduate students to address urban environmental challenges through hands-on training in a semester-long internship with the government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and/or the private sector to learn how cities are tackling environmental challenges, including but not limited to mitigation and adaptation to climate change, protecting vulnerable populations from air pollution, and issues related to water quality and quantity.
The course consists of 7 required sessions, described in detail below.
How to Register for the Course
If you are a GRS student:
- In your student link, register for GRS BI/EE 795: Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health: From Research to Policy. Unless instructed otherwise, sign up for 2 course credits if you are devoting 6-11 hours/week in your internships, or sign up for 4 course credits if you are devoting 12 or more hours/week.
If you are an SPH student:
- If you are in the first two years of your PhD, register for SPH EH 795: Urban Biogeoscience and Environmental Health: From Research to Policy. Unless instructed otherwise, sign up for 2 course credits if you are devoting 6-11 hours/week in your internships, or sign up for 4 course credits if you are devoting 12 or more hours/week.
- If you are in the third year or later of you PhD, you will take the internship course as an independent study for 1 credit. Please complete the form linked here and email it to Jon Levy (jonlevy@bu.edu), Birgit Claus Henn (bclaus@bu.edu) and the URBAN Program Manager (urban@bu.edu). You do not have to fill out the Project Proposal section.
- If you wish to do the internship as a formal research rotation, speak with your faculty advisor and the URBAN Program Manager.
If you are unable to register for the course directly, contact your departmental administrator.
Session One: Orientation
June 29, 2022
- Share internship status/progress
- Review Syllabus and adjust dates as needed
- Identify interested partners/stakeholders/experts for informational interviews.
- Who is (or should be) interested in your internship work and interested in you as a trainee? Consider organizations, offices, or individuals that are doing (or might want to do) similar work. Try to find specific people that you could connect with, individuals you could imaging sending a policy brief, inviting to a stakeholder meeting, or calling for an informational interview. Aim for three individuals, at least one who shares aspects of your identity, one who doesn’t, and one with a PhD.
- How? Ask your advisor, your internship host, or previous mentors. Use google or LinkedIn. Look through Executive/Advisory Boards of organizations you work with or admire.
- Define an ask for your informational interview. Career pathways? Broader impacts? Skill cultivation during internship or beyond?
- Assignment for next session:
Session Two: Policy Briefs
On Your Own, at some point during July 5-15, 2022
- Send an email to the class with the following:
- Internship progress – how’s it going?
- Attach the policy brief example you found and one thing that inspires you about it
- Reflect and share: What could you achieve with a policy brief that resulted from your internship? Who would you share it with and why?
- Assignment for next session:
- Explore the Bending Lines exhibit from the Levanthal Map & Education Center and find an example that relates to your internship.
- Read or listen to one of the papers or podcasts below and be prepared to discuss.
- 99pi (2020). “The Weather Machine.” 99% Invisible. Episode
- FitzGerald, E (2020). “Missing the Bus.” 99% Invisible. Episode
- Ramaswami, A., et al. (2016). “Meta-principles for developing smart, sustainable, and healthy cities.” Science, 352(6288), 940-943. pdf
- Harman, B.P., et al. (2015). “Urban partnerships and climate adaptation: challenges and opportunities.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 12: 74-79. pdf
- Read this and this about informational interviews.
Session Three: The Big Picture
July 20, 2022
- Share internship progress
- Heads Together 1 (focused conversation on an issue presented by a trainee)
- Reflect on readings
- Bending Lines Exhibit
- Podcasts and papers
- Discuss internship products/deliverables
- Discuss peer review process and expectations
- Independent work: Drafting informational interview outreach email
- Assignment for next session (by July 27):
- Contact your three informational interview targets. We recommend the following approach: “I’m doing an internship with [organization] on [problem you’re trying to solve] as part of my PhD program and I’m reaching to for an informational interview with you given your expertise/experience with [the topic]. I’d love to share what I’m working on and hear from you how you’ve addressed similar challenges in the past or future directions you could envision for this type of work. More broadly, I’d be interested to hear about your professional path to [role] as I’ve been considering something similar after I finish my PhD.”
- Read this explainer on Policy Presentations from the MIT Policy Lab
- Make progress on your internship product
Session Four: Elevator Pitches
Session Five: Stakeholder Presentations
July 27, 2022
- Share progress on internships and informational interviews
- Heads Together 2 & 3 (focused conversation on an issue presented by a trainee)
- Storyboarding presentations for mock stakeholders and for Intro Workshop
- Assignments:
Session Six: Peer Review
August 10, 2022
- Share progress on internships and informational interviews
- Heads Together 4 (focused conversation on an issue presented by a trainee)
- Two rounds of discussion (Alina and Dan | Kathryn, Sam, Claudia)
- Assignments:
- Prepare a 3-minute internship lightning talk for the Intro Workshop (download template here). We will practice the lightning talks during Session Seven and you will record your talk so we can share it with incoming trainees in advance of the Intro Workshop. Your recording will ultimately be public – posted on the URBAN website and our YouTube channel. Plan accordingly. If are things you can’t share are aren’t ready to share, aim for something higher-level that still explains the problem and that you did something useful.
Session Seven: Practice Presentations
August 31, 2022
- Share progress on internships and informational interviews
- Heads Together 5 (focused conversation on an issue presented by a trainee)
- Give practice talks for Intro Workshop
- Assignments due Friday, September 2 by 5pm
Introductory Workshop for incoming URBAN Cohort
Thursday, September 8, 2022, 2:00 – 5:00 pm, Biology Research Building Room 113 (5 Cummington Mall)
- Internship discussion taking place: 2:30 – 3:00 pm
Peer Review Information and Timeline
- Peer Review of trainee internship products is included in the internship course as a way to improve the quality of the product and provide an opportunity to practice and improve peer review skills. Peer review is helpful for two major reasons. First, this process should help the writer by providing them with constructive criticism so that they can improve their product. The second purpose is for the reviewer to see commonly made mistakes so that they can avoid them in their own writing.
- Given that each internship timeline is unique, each peer review timeline will also be unique and should be agreed upon by the writer and the reviewer. The goal is that eventually, each trainee receives peer feedback, even if it isn’t until October! Please communicate with your peer reviewer about a feedback timeline that works for your internship. If you are able to follow the timeline below, that’s great, but not necessary.
- When initiating peer reviewer, the writer should identify what exactly they would like feedback on. Examples could include ideas and assumptions, grammar and spelling, clarity and concision, or a general sanity check. It can also be helpful to explain what you don’t want feedback on, so that the reviewer doesn’t waste time focusing on the wrong thing. A helpful strategy could be for the peers to agree upon how much time they will spend on the review (e.g., 1 hour) and therefore what the priority should be during that time.
- The course instructor will also provide feedback on your product.
- ASAP: Decide on your internship product/deliverable and agree on a timeline for sending the draft to and receiving input from your reviewer. If product size or complexity differ between reviewers, agree upon portions of products that result in a fair amount of work done by each party.
- Sam to Claudia | Claudia to Sam | Kathryn to Alina | Alina to Dan | Dan to Kathryn
- August 3: Send a draft of your product to your peer reviewer and the course instructor.
- August 10: Provide/receive feedback on draft internship products/deliverables.
Optional Sessions on Professional Development from Summer 2020
Complementary Session: Developing your Online Presence, Part 1
June 16, 2020
- Share internship or research progress
- Explore your online presence and set a goal for developing it
- Ask:
- What is my current online presence? (Hint: Google your name in incognito mode, in quotes)
- Reflect on the four questions here, under “Why have a web presence?”
- Decide:
- What are my goals for this summer? What can I do by the end of June? What can I do today?
- Low-hanging fruit
- Update your bio on BU URBAN website, lab website, social media, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, etc.
- Update your email signature and include links to programs and departments
- Google a few researchers you admire (current PhD students or recent graduates) and explore their online presence
- Bookmark:
- Work session: 25 minutes improving your online presence
- Share out and next steps
Complementary Session: Developing your Online Presence, Part 2
June 30, 2020
- Share internship or research progress
- Questions to consider
- What do you stand for? What are your goals?
- Choose three keywords and map it out with evidence & actions
- Write a mission statement
- I am a ____
- I work towards ____
- I believe/am committed to _____
- Work session: 10 minutes working on your bio
- How do you want to position yourself?
- Who is your audience and what are the conventions?
- Considerations
- Focus on what makes you unique
- Make it evergreen (“PhD student”)
- Articulate your research paradigm
- Work session: 15 minutes working on your bio
- Share out and next steps
Complementary Session: Documenting Public Communications
July 28, 2020
- Share out: How do you currently document your public communications?
- Discuss options, make game plan
- Work session: 20 minutes working on your document
- Share out and next steps