The point of an internship is to advance your learning about the practice of economics.  OSU’s internship office provides a useful summary about internships at: OSU Internships. To pursue internship credits, you will need to coordinate with the employer and an Economics faculty member.  In economics, students generally identify employers for internships on their own, from listings in Handshake, or from opportunities sent via the economics major or minor listservs.  If you are not a member of an econ listserve and would like to be added, contact Laura Relyea.

Any Economics faculty member is eligible to serve as instructor for the internship.  Based on the information provided by the employer on the specific duties of the job and the hours that you would be working, the faculty member assesses whether or not the proposed internship is suitable for economics internship credits based on the job duties in relation to economics.  Some of the guidelines for approving internships are given at: criteria for internships.

The faculty member will discuss course requirements and evaluation procedures with you.   Requirements will include the relevant job duties and the number of credits.  You can earn 1 credit hour for each 30 hours of work.  It is possible to make arrangements with your instructor to pursue additional credits by keeping a journal and/or writing a paper based on your experience.  Be aware that you can apply only 4 credits of the “blanket-numbered” courses (ECON 401-406, 408-410) to the major or the minor.  All internships are graded pass/no-pass.

Internship Registration:

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  1. The Internship Agreement form is used to communicate between you, your internship employer/supervisor, and your internship faculty instructor.
  2. Visit our faculty internship coordinator, Grant Jacobsen. They can answer questions about the internship process. The coordinator can also assign a faculty instructor for your internship if you do not already have one.
  3. Visit with your faculty instructor. S/he evaluates whether or not the expected internship duties have sufficient economics content, establishes additional assignments if needed, and sets the number of credits commensurate with work hours.
  4. Complete the Internship Agreement form, keeping a copy for yourself and your faculty instructor. The original is submitted to Laura Relyea in 418E Bexell Hall.
  5. Laura will provide an override and the student then registers for the "class". Registration for internship credits must be completed before internship begins; university deadlines apply.
  6. Upon completion of your internship, request that your internship employer/supervisor send an evaluation of your work to your internship faculty instructor.
  7. Your faculty instructor will assign a grade of Pass/No pass.