Internships for Credit
Internships provide students with valuable opportunities to apply classroom knowledge in real-world settings, build professional skills, expand their network, and explore potential career paths. While internships are not required for the Data Science major, students are strongly encouraged to pursue relevant experiential learning opportunities throughout their time at Emory.
Helpful resources for finding internship opportunities include:
Internships for Academic Credit
DSci majors with an unpaid internship during the Fall or Spring semester and international students requiring CPT may be eligible for academic credit for the semester of their data science-related internship.
Students are responsible for securing their own internship before applying for academic credit. Once you have accepted an internship offer and received an official offer letter, you can apply to receive academic credit.
Note: Students may only receive academic credit for unpaid internships or for CPT.
Interns work with an approved sponsor for a minimum of 13 weeks and complete academic components that deepen their learning, which may include a research or reflection paper and a brief check-in meeting with the Internship Director. Supervisors provide an evaluation at the end of the semester.
The scope of the work and the associated writing requirements depend on the number of credit hours a student chooses to earn. All DSci internships must be taken for a letter grade and satisfy the Experience and Application GER; the internship may satisfy the Continuing Writing Requirement, depending on the associated coursework.
- Be a Data Science, Applied Mathematics & Statistics, or Public Policy Analysis major.
- Be in good academic standing.
- Complete the internship during the semester in which they are enrolled for credit.
- Enroll in DATASCI 496R(W) to receive academic credit.
- Pay tuition for the course to earn academic credit.
- Academic credit cannot be awarded retroactively.
- Review the eligibility requirements above.
- Secure an internship and obtain your offer letter.
- Complete the Data Science Internship Application.
- Submit your application no later than two weeks before the end of the semester's Add/Drop/Swap period.
- If your application is approved by the Internship Director, the DSci Research Program Coordinator will enroll you in DATASCI 496R(W) during the appropriate Add/Drop/Swap period.
- You will receive an email confirming your approval, course enrollment, and credit hours.
- Students may apply up to 4 credits from DATASCI 496R(W) toward the Data Science major.
- These credits count as general major credit and do not fulfill upper-level elective requirements.
- Internship credit is only available for internships completed during the semester in which you are enrolled.
- DATASCI 496R(W) is not offered during the summer.
- Students completing summer internships should instead apply for INTERN 496 or INTERN 497 through the Office of International and Summer Programs.
- The Data Science Department does not manage enrollment for summer internship courses.
Alumni Success Stories
“My internship gave me insight into how the "real world" of data analytics works as I completed data models and code workflows. I learned Python and SQL, and even had the opportunity to teach my coworkers about Docker during a virtual lunch-and-learn event. Ultimately, my work as an intern led to the company offering me a full-time position after graduation, and I stayed there for a little over a year before applying to graduate programs.” For more information, see our FAQ page.
