The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

Overview

To complete Master's Degrees at the New School, students in International Affairs must either present a thesis paper or work with a team in conducting a Practicum in International Affairs. The Practicum team works independently on a project proposed by a client organization. The teams work more in the manner of consultants than interns. Students come into this final project knowing it will be rigorous, challenging and difficult, with the expectation that they will produce professional quality work. For this reason we seek projects that go beyond what is normally expected of students in an internship to instead provide an important and actionable contribution to advancing the mission of the client.

Practicum teams consist of four to eight students who work for 15 weeks. In consultation with the client, the students negotiate the deliverables, design a workplan, conduct data collection and analysis, write a report and/or produce some other product (e.g. brochure, manual, film). Finally, the team makes a formal presentation to the client and The New School community. The presentation to the New School takes the form of an oral defense and is an important component of their final grade for the Practicum.

Past PIA clients have included EngenderHealth, United Nations Develompent Program, North American Congress on Latin America, International Rescue Committee,  and many more.  A list of some past projects can be found here.

Student Skills and Commitments

New School students in International Affairs:

• Possess a wide range of experiences, skills and languages.
• Have training in project development and program management, including documentation, activity-based budgeting, proposal writing, evaluation and monitoring.
• Will be assigned to an organization project by matching their backgrounds, skills and interests with the client's needs and the nature of the project.
• Will develop and implement a detailed work plan, collect relevant data and information, and increase and apply knowledge surrounding the project.
• Will prepare and deliver a professional product within agreed time-frame, including interim reports if requested by client.
• Are eager to deepen their knowledge base, enrich their experiences and become practitioners committed to social change and improvement in the global community.

Faculty Supervisor:

Every practicum team has a faculty supervisor.  The role of the supervisor is to

• Act as week-to-week project manager, meeting with students and reviewing their work.
• Ensure an acceptable level of communication between client and student-teams and ensure the experience is not a burden on the client.
• Work closely with students to ensure project deliverables are submitted on time and to specification; trouble-shoot the work prior to submission to the client.
• Organize and rehearse a client presentation.

Client Obligations

Besides being a tremendous student learning experience, it is our intention that the Practicum be a great benefit to the client organization.  But at the same time, we recognize that clients have busy schedules and multiple competing obligations, so we have only two expectations of clients in the Practicum process, that the client:

• Provide a short ‘Terms of Reference' describing the project, objectives, timeframe and expected deliverables (see form below).
• Meet with the team at least twice during the semester of the Practicum in your preferred time and place.

Timeline

While some proposed Practicum projects can be carried out in the semester immediately following the proposal, we prefer that they be first worked on in our Program Development and Project Management (PDPM) course in which they learn techniques and tools - needs assessment, logical framework, strategic design, implementation, proposal and report writing, budgeting, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy - used in a range of professional contexts.  All students must pass this course before they can join a Practicum team.  Because of this we use proposed client projects as a focal point for working on the course assignments.  This results in the students having had a full semester to reflect on the project deliverables, learn about the client, develop a draft workplan and cohere as a team prior to embarking in full on the project.

Whether your organization's project is placed in PDPM or is offered immediately as a Practicum depends on your deadline.  If the final product is needed within a semester's time, it will go directly into the Practicum; so for example, a Fall semester Practicum team would deliver product in December, a Spring Practicum product would be delivered in May.  If a longer time frame is possible, it will go into PDPM, thus the final product would be delivered at the end of the subsequent semester (i.e., in May if the project is addressed in Fall PDPM or in December if it is in Spring PDPM). 

How to Participate

Please complete the form below so that your project can be considered for inclusion in the PDPM/Practicum cycle: