Abstract:

On-campus internships at Harvard provide the unique opportunity for students to work within an office of the university and contribute to the programming and workshops at the university available to students regarding such topics as diversity, inclusion, gender, and more. In this study I seek to understand the ways that these internships affect the student interns themselves; namely, how these on-campus internships affect students’ perception of their role and of their agency to create change on campus. Through interviews with interns at the Harvard College Women’s Center, I find that students’ sense of agency, authority, and legitimacy are increased through their work at the Women’s Center, as well as through the connections that their role as ‘intern’ allows them to forge, whether with administrators or with other students. Overall, the internship role allows for students to perceive a greater sense of connectedness with the university and with other students as a whole.

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