Philosophers do Internships

Where and when did you do your internship and what did you do as an intern?

I had worked as a research and planning assistant for CCECanada (Community-Campus Engage Canada) from October 2023 to April 2024. CCECanada is a Canada-wide organization that supports communities and academic institutions to foster community-engaged research and partnerships. They support academics, students, community partners, and community engagement offices to address various social issues such as climate change, food security, or health. They have members who are academic researchers, students, community engagement officers, and community partners.

During my time in CCECanada, I focused mainly on participatory research related to climate change adaptation, mitigation, as well as other related forms of disasters, hazards, and risks such as climate change-driven housing and health issues. I used qualitative research methods including literature reviews and environmental scanning on the state of participatory and community-based research in the context of climate change. I had a chance to learn about how post-secondary institutions respond to climate disasters and hazards, develop new institutional mechanisms and work with communities to enhance resilience.

In addition, I have collaborated with social scientists from University of Regina and CCECanada to investigate and understand the landscape of participatory climate change research in Canada by reviewing multiple databases. We are working on disseminating our findings this year.

Apart from research, I explored the community-based research and learning opportunities provided by post-secondary institutions in Canada. This includes examining community engagement offices—sometimes referred to as “public engagement”, “experiential learning”, or “community involvement”—as well as community engagement programs, departments, and learning and funding opportunities. Also, I compiled some reports on what has been learned from previous community-first research projects by explaining their benefits and challenges for different actors including researchers, community partners, and students. I also complied some reports summarizing what has been learned in some previous community-first research projects, including the benefits and challenges for researchers, community partners, and students. This was very useful for me to better understand the institutional side of things when it comes to community engagement in the Canadian post-secondary institutions.

As a planning assistant, I attended general monthly meetings and knowledge exchange sessions and generated reports and summaries. Additionally, I transcribed interviews of scholars doing community-based research and learning and made a podcast with two graduate students who focus on the experiences of homeless communities in two different Canadian regions.

How did you find out about or generate the opportunity to do the internship?

I first heard about this opportunity from Natalie Houghton-Wilkinson, one of the coordinators of Transformative Talent Internships (TTI) program. She was a guest speaker in our graduate course on professional development. Before that, the idea of doing an internship as a graduate student did not even cross my mind. I realized that most graduate students, whether in philosophy or non-philosophy, do not know about this program. I knew that graduate internships or co-op work are common in some STEM fields, but I had not considered it as an option because I was mainly interested in academic jobs.

Last year, I was thinking of exploring non-academic options to increase my chances of finding employment after graduation. Following Ken Waters’ suggestion, I talked to a few philosophers of science who currently work in related fields such as science policy and science communication. I am also enthusiastic about doing work that can have some positive impact on communities and the environment. Before diving into academic philosophy as a graduate student, I was involved in several volunteering and advocacy projects. In my free time, I still volunteer for Inglewood Bird Sanctuary as a steward/birder.

In addition, I wanted to gain some insights for my own research by connecting with researchers who are actively involved in community-based projects. For my dissertation, I am interested in the social dimensions of science, especially how individuals, communities, and institutions deal with values in scientific data practices.  A part of it includes the debates around public participation and stakeholder engagement in science. Given my personal and research interests, I decided to check the available TTI internships in some related areas including environment, nature conservation, science policy, or data ethics.

Natalie has been incredibly supportive encouraging while I was deciding on applying for an internship. She helped me identify my academic and professional skills that can be transferable for other sectors. I also worked with Charlotte Anyango Ong’ang’a (Centre for Career and Personal Development), who generously held multiple meetings with me to prepare and polish my resume, LinkedIn page, and cover letter. Many of us in the humanities tend to undermine the value of our transferrable skills such as research, writing, public communication skills, which are highly relevant beyond academic such as non-profit sector.

Did you find that doing the internship was useful? What did you get out of it?

I found this internship incredibly helpful. It provided me with an understanding of how community-engaged research is done – far more than I could have gained by simply reading academic publications. Information of this sort is often difficult to come by in peer-reviewed journal articles or even grey literature. While I was familiar with some of the conceptual and theoretical approaches, learning from others’ experiences helped me understand how these approaches align with, or sometimes conflict with actual practices. These approaches in fields like philosophy tend to be quite normative and abstract models. It has been useful to think of their implications for some contemporary philosophical debates about the benefits and challenges of community engagement in science. 

Through interdisciplinary research, I learned more about social scientific methods including qualitative literature review, environmental scanning, and data collection. I was introduced to some research tools and software (i.e., nVivo, VOSviewer, and Connected Papers) that I now use regularly for my own research. In philosophy, such methods are less standardized. For example, doing some research on PhilPapers or Google Scholar might be sufficient to find relevant articles in a particular niche area of philosophy. While doing this project, I learned about more robust and in-depth methods of literature review such as rapid and scoping reviews and used multiple databases. In addition, I developed skills in research communication and media tools, including interviewing and podcasting, both of which were new to me. 

This internship helped me learn more about the inner mechanisms of the non-profit sector. Although I knew a bit about it through my previous volunteering experience, I was able to learn more about managerial and research responsibilities such as applying for grants and building research collaborations across different institutions and communities.

While I was doing this internship, I was enrolled in TTI Advance D2L, an online, self-paced course to keep track of my tasks and goals as a part of TTI program. It was great for logging what I learned, setting tasks and goals, and monitoring my skill development over time.

Did you get paid? How much and by whom?

This internship was offered as a part of the Transformative Talent Internship Program. I was not paid extra by CCECanada, but The Faculty of Graduate Studies offered tuition reimbursement and $20 per hour via scholarship for a maximum of 480 hours for this TTI internship with an approved non-profit. I also received a $500 Completion Award for successfully completing the internship and the online D2L program. The Public Humanities Fellowship Program is another option supported by TTI where fellows participate in six seminars through the Winter semester and then participate in a part-time internship with a community organisation through the Spring and Summer semesters. The University of Calgary also offers other internship programs such as Mitacs, but it is typically financed by other organizations and STEM based. 

What should a grad student interested in doing an internship know that you wish someone had told you before you applied or did it?

I wish I had known about this program earlier. I do not think it was too late for me, and I was lucky to do an internship in a place that I enjoyed working for. However, for anyone looking to build a career in a non-academic field, it would be better to start earlier in their studies.

The TTI program has a list of internship opportunities that are fully or partially funded by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Most of these programs are for STEM majors, but it is possible to secure an internship with an organization or company outside the list and still count as a TTI internship. TTI can provide top-up funding for students earning <$20 per hour in their internship as well as the tuition reimbursement, completion award, D2L program and reflection of the internship on your transcript.

The Calgary Institute of Humanities offers the Public Humanities Fellowship Program each year. This is specifically designed for graduate students in the humanities disciplines. The deadline for Public Humanities Fellows for 2025 is November 15, 2025. This is a fantastic opportunity for Humanities based PhD student who want to work with a local non-profit/community-engaged organization.

I believe that these internship opportunities would be even useful and valuable for those who solely seek academic jobs. They offer a chance to gain additional experience that can enhance research, communication, or organizational skills. In my case, I learned more about different research methodologies, media tools, and the non-profit sector. While I was initially worried about whether my skills would be easily transferable to non-academic sectors, I ended up improving my academic research skills.