SINSI to add separate undergraduate internship program

The Wilson School’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative program will be broken up into two programs, Dean of the Wilson School Cecilia Rouse said.

Rouse explained that the first would be a summer internship program open to rising sophomores, juniors and seniors, and the second component would be the SINSI graduate program, which is open to seniors and will involve two years of the Wilson School’s Master of Public Administration program and two years of federal service.

The program is currently a six-year commitment, and accepts students in their junior year. Selected SINSI scholars complete an internship the summer before their senior year, and upon graduation finish the Wilson School’s MPA program for two years and do two years of federal service fellowship.

The changes resulted from a review by Wilson School faculty that took place last year, Rouse said, explaining that the faculty wanted to make the SINSI experience available to more students.

Rouse explained that the faculty felt that the SINSI program is a big advantage to students since having the director of SINSI place students into internships would give them better opportunities than what students might find on their own.

She added that the faculty felt having students apply to the program in their junior year was too early.

“It’s very early to be asking students who’ve just barely six months after selecting a college major on making a six-year commitment in terms of what they want to do going forward,” Rouse said.

The changes will be initiated in the 2016 fall semester, SINSI Director Hilda Arellano said.

“We really wanted to make sure that all of this was done in the proper sequence and what we intend to do, as of probably the second semester, early 2016, is have the revised website up that explains both the changes, and also have the process that people would follow starting in the fall of 2016,” Arellano said.

According to Arellano, this was the first review of the program since its conception nine years ago.

“I think usually programs are reviewed more frequently. I think it was because it was a new program and a relatively small program,” she said.

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Rouse noted that in the review, faculty looked at how current SINSI students were doing academically, as well as careers that SINSI students went into upon completing the program.

So far, the program has been largely successful, and based on interviews with agencies in DC that have hired SINSI graduates, the faculty saw that the program is also helping to raise Princeton’s profile in Washington, D.C., Rouse noted.

“When they looked at the outcomes in terms of career placement of SINSIs compared to students who had applied to the program but weren’t selected, they found the SINSIs were almost five times more likely to go into a public service job,” said Rouse.

Both Rouse and Arellano said that the program hopes to attract all students, not just those in the Wilson School.

“We actually had a higher percentage of [non-Wilson School] applicants than ever before last year and we also had a higher number of applicants last year,” said Arellano.

Rouse added that the program hopes to attract students who have not otherwise thought about a career in public service.

Nathan Eckstein ’16, Jamal Johnson ’16, Abyssinia Lissanu ’16, Michelle Nedashkovskaya ’16 and Alex Wheatley ’16, the five seniors currently in the SINSI program, declined to comment.