Graduate Public Service Internship Program (GPSI)

Good evening. We are here to talk about our UIS graduate opportunities. My name is Barbara Vandyke Brown and I am the program manager for legislative internships and actually legislative and graduate internships. Jason is our new project director with the Office of Graduate Intern programs and of course Lisa is here as well. So welcome.

And we'll go ahead and get started. So graduate opportunities are great in terms of gaining that experience, but it is also about funding your education and are all of our programs do both of those things. So let's talk a little bit more.

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So let's first of all talk a little bit about where we're located. We are in the the state of Illinois about Midway Springfield. We offer a number of graduate degree programs and of course then our graduate public service internship program is kind of our premier program, but we also have graduate assistantships and I'm also going to mention the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern program as well today.

So we're located in Springfield. It's about 200 miles from Chicago, about 3 hours and 90 miles to Saint Louis. That's a little closer to Saint Louis. It is 746 acres. So we have a lot of farmland and also just general environment around us. We're a little bit outside of Springfield, but we're close enough that you can be in town in 10 or 15 minutes. We have a population of 120,000 people.

So I had an intern today that was actually telling me that he loved Springfield he's an international student and he was saying that he just he was he's really amazed that it's such a great city and and he look he's loves being here already. So it's it's a lot more peaceful than he thought it might be coming to America for those of you that are international.

So what is UIS like? Well, we're a public university. Um, we pride ourselves on small class sizes. We are one of three within the University of Illinois system. We are named one of our the number one public regional university in Illinois by the US News and World reports America's best colleges.

Here's a list of all of our graduate degrees. We have quite a variety of degrees, so you can take a look and kind of go down the list and see if one of those is one that you might be interested in. Please note that application fees are being waived through May, the May of 2023.

Let's talk a little bit about the graduate Public Service internship program. First of all, this is a paid internship, mostly with state agencies. But we also have some of our local governments and also nonprofits that participate in this program. What happens is the state agency picks up the cost of the internship in terms of paying the intern, and they also pick up the cost of a certain.

Amount of tuition. So the currently it is 24 credits per year and then we also pay about 1300 in fees for the course of the year, 650 in the fall and 6:50 in the spring. So what do you get out of it is that you get that experience and then you also get all the networking connections that come with that. They are part time hours in the fall in the spring and then full time hours in the summer.

So it's a great way to learn about the job and then you get the experience of doing it, you know, for real, like you know like a regular job going to work everyday Monday through Friday and get a sense of, you know, is this something that I'm going to really enjoy doing for my career? We have currently we have placements in Springfield and Chicago, but COVID has taught us that we can have placements anywhere because of the remote.

Working a lot of our state agencies, we are finding our preferring to have remote work and so as a result it's possible that we will be having placements elsewhere, but right now they are in Springfield and in Chicago.

Sample of our GSI placements and idea of the different types of internships we offer. There's internal audit, budget analyst conservation. We have some that are out in the field doing you know like testing water testing, soil, environmental toxicity, infectious disease surveillance. So whether you're, you know, sometimes it's a matter of of doing all the data crunching for those.

Things and then sometimes it's actually doing the clinical work as well. So COVID disparities in rural communities. So sometimes it's it's calling in to people and finding out what's going on with them. Nonprofit management intern. So like I said, we do have some that are in our nonprofits. One of them is camera village which is a residence facility for youth and so we have.

Some that are placed there and they're actually engaging with the court system with those juveniles and then also doing casework for those of you that might be interested in more of the counseling aspect of a graduate degree and then social innovation, of course, we have a lot of computer science through all of our our state agencies.

The Graduate Public Service Intern Program offers a number of benefits I've talked about a little bit before. We have our tuition waiver which is 24 credits per year. Normally that's broken down with 10 credits in the fall and 10 in the spring and then four in the summer. However, you know sometimes you're only taking 9 credits in the fall and you might have those other three. You can transfer those three around within the contract to your. So maybe you want to.

Take more credits in the spring or more credits in the summer. Or or maybe you wanna take more credits in the fall in the spring and not take credits in the summer so you can transfer those around. The fee waiver is 1300 per year, which means 6:50 in the fall in the spring and then there isn't a fee waiver for the summer.

We also offer a professional Development Fund, which is an annual fee that or amount that's funded that's available, you would go ahead and pay for perhaps to attend a conference or perhaps for perhaps for a subscription and then you would be reimbursed for that. And that's how the professional Development Fund works. And then your stipend is $1200, so that's 20 hours per week.

In the fall and the spring and then full time in the summer is at 2400.

We also, um, do recruitment for graduate assistantships, so we have graduate assistants here on campus, teaching assistants, research assistants and pre professional graduate assistants. The positions in green are part of the Graduate Employees Union, so those are unionized, unionized positions.

The benefits for graduate assistantship are similar to GPSI, but they're actually a little bit more because you have 12 hours per semester instead of 10. So few more credits, 12 in the fall in the spring and then again two more credits in the summer. So 6 credits in the summer and then the stipend is a little bit more first year assistance or 121781 a month and then second year.

Resistance are 127781. Now one of the big differences with our RGA positions is that you do have the summers off and so you have summers off and then your work experience is more in an academic setting. A lot of our our interns do prefer the GA because they don't have to have a car and they're right here on campus and so that's those are some of the reasons why you might be interested in a GA.

Position and you're mostly interacting with students and faculty and staff rather than working, you know, in an agency and and there's a little bit of a different dynamic with that.

With both of these programs you need to apply online and um, when you're filling out your graduate application, then there is a point where you can click that you're interested in a GPS IGA application and you can indicate one or the other or both.

For the GPS I you need a 2.5 GPA, 3 letters of recommendation and those need to be emailed to the registrar along with your resume. And then in addition to that, our deadlines are a little bit different, so for spring of 2023.

Was November 2022 for the fall which is upcoming for fall of 2023 it's gonna be this upcoming May. So for May 1 for the fall is what most of you will be interested in knowing and the same for the GA deadlines. So the the fall 2023 will be March the 15th.

Um, so it's a little bit earlier. And then they actually have a follow up deadline of June 1, so there's actually 2 deadlines for the GA position.

Separate and different from our GSI and our GA positions are is the Illinois Legislative Staff interim program or what we refer to as Alsip and the SIPON for the fall of 2023 has increased. It is $3300 per month. This is a full time internship and in addition you would have two credits in the fall and two credits in the spring. It is tuition free.

So we would cover the program would cover all four of those credits along with all the fees including your student insurance. It is a 10 month placement.

And then in terms of the kinds of things that you would be doing are the same types of things that the staff would be doing for the legislature, analyzing bills, evaluating budget requests, researching various issues that are coming before the General Assembly, drafting bills and even amendments. So if there's changes that need to be made to the bill, then then you might be involved in the drafting process some of our interns are handling the press and member services for.

A number of the membership, so several legislators. Usually there's a few more for the house and for the Senate. And then in addition to that, they generally provide general support to the legislative members. If they have questions about bills or need information, they may be the source of answering those questions.

Um, we have placements not only with the partisan staff, which is more the political side of things, the House and Senate Democrats in the House and Senate Republicans, but we also have positions with the Commission on Government forecasting and accountability. And there is a lot more of the legal research and writing less of of.

How your face to the public is less is more of an internal support for the legislature. So you're working independently and as a team player in various projects. You're responding to legislator requests and producing official legislative memos or publications.

Excuse me?

The application process is similar to GSI and GA.

In that you apply as a part of your graduate application.

The difference is that this is about getting the experience, it's not about pursuing a degree for this particular program, so.

Applications are due March the 15th. Interviews will follow in April and then the start date September. This is a 10 month program and it is full time, so international students are not eligible for this particular program unless they want to use it for a training opportunity after the completion of their degree. So in that case they would need an OPT certificate in order to participate.

This is all our links on the website so if you want to go and take a look and get some additional information this is a great resource for that. And of course then I also have Jason and my contact information as well.

So I have a few questions over here. Can you explain the difference between the fee waiver and the tuition waiver? Yes.

So.

Your fee waiver is, um, based on it's there's like a standard fee throughout the process. And then your credits, the number of credits you take, there's a your tuition is based on the number of credits.

So there's there's two different pieces to it and for those of you that are kind of familiar with the process that the a lot of times you will find your fees are kind of high. So there is there is a certain amount of of fees and of course we will not cover all of those. A good piece of your fees are your student health insurance and GPSI does not cover your student health insurance generally.

And so that would be probably the bulk of the fees that we would not cover in GPSI.

OK, of course, for many of you, your health insurance may still be covered by by your parents, and so that really isn't an issue for you.

Um.

Let's see.

Yes, as a US global you are eligible for GPS I. You are not eligible of course for the on campus GPA. So yes, Jason, thank you for adding that in.

The fee waiver actually happens automatically. So once you're selected for the program, I actually handle all the tuition waivers and so I put those into the system and then it gets reported out and then applied to your student account.

Ohh your application view. I'm sorry I misread that application fee waiver.

OK. Any other questions?

For GPSI, we generally try to um.

Look at all of the applications in about the month before that they're due. If you have questions about your application, you can always reach out to us. But generally it is in April that we start reviewing those applications with Ilsa up, it's about the same. I'll start looking at applications probably mid February.

And processing them as they come in.

NGA would be about the same, about a month out is when we start processing. But again if you have any questions you can reach out to us and we will respond to those questions.

International students are eligible for both GPS ING's.

Hmm, that's a tough one. What's the GPSI success rate for international students? We have quite a few international students that have come in, but.

It's always difficult for us to kind of measure that because what happens is the number of positions that we have changes from semester to semester. So it's kind of hard to say that the success rate is going to be a blanket number.

The way that works is the state agencies, um, give us requests that are due the same date that the applications are. And so we process those requests for interns at the same point that we're processing the applications. And so if we, if we by chance have 150 applications, then it's possible that you know, we could have 250 applicants. So.

You know, you can kind of figure what the ratio of success is going to be there is going to vary and it also varies between the majors because we might have a lot of applicants for say computer science but not have enough a lot of internship opportunities for computer science. So it's really hard for us to to, you know, use that number of success rates specifically for international.

Students, I can tell you that the percentage of international students that we have participating in GPSI is more than the majority, it's bigger than 50%. So I would say most of our participants are international students, if that helps to answer that success rate question.

I think that's probably a better measure than success rate, like how many are applying and how many.

Get in.

Any other questions?

Barbara.

Hmm.

You may want to talk about first, second, potential third round and having to have a complete application file and being admitted in order to be considered.

Sure, sure. So as you're applying for GPSI the first, the first thing that you need to do is to be admitted to your program and to have completed all of your application requirements, which means that you need to have submitted a resume.

You need to have submitted 3 letters of recommendation from your references so they refer to them as LOR's, but.

Reference letters is is those need to come directly from your references and in addition to that then you need to complete the application and the application has some you know different skills that that you want to highlight that that you feel represent your abilities. And then also there are some questions about what public service means to you and just some some generic questions so the application resume.

Ladders.

All need to be submitted.

And then you also need to be admitted to the program before your application can be reviewed. Once it's reviewed, then it it goes into the pool, which the agencies will then be reviewing those applications and making determination of those that they want to interview. And from there they will say, OK, these are the these are the applicants that we want to interview and then.

As an applicant, you would have an opportunity to say yes or no to those interviews. So there's kind of a matching process that happens and then after that, then if you say yes, you want to go ahead with the interview. Then those interviews proceed and the selection process follows. Soon after, we have the first round that happens in the fall, so that's why we're having May 1 as the deadline for applications for the fall semester.

We will have another round that will have a deadline. Right now it's not in stone but we're looking at it has been this last year N1 for the spring around. So for it'll be N1 for placements that start in the for the spring semester and then.

And so that's that's the we basically though do those two times that we are reviewing applications that could change but right now that's that's what we're doing.

OK. Was there another question, Lisa? Did I get all the high points there?

Uh, no. But I would say, you know, for that May 1st opening, you know, you may want to make sure that you have a completed application file by May 1st so that your department can evaluate and make a decision and you can have that decision made and accept that offer of admission. So you're in the, the GA or the.

UPSI pool for that first round.

Yes. And so for for that first round, I would say that you would want to be admitted before may one. I would say you'd probably want to be admitted no later, well I would say definitely before May 1 to make that deadline. But but with you know getting your application into the department will have to happen a little bit earlier because they do have to review those applications and some departments don't do that immediately. They do it like once a month or something like that.

And so you would wanna make sure that you get your application into the department in as early as possible.

Any other questions for us?

We have been finding that some of our interns, even though they are placed here in Springfield, may be working remotely either part time or full time. I had an intern today that told me that they were providing the computer and that he would be working remotely for the the duration of of his internship. We also have interns that only work part time, so for instance they might have a hybrid what we call a hybrid schedule. So they have to be in the office.

Maybe one day a week or two days a week and then they work remotely the other one or two days. As far as your schedule goes, you'll find that I'm gonna move back so that you can see that.

Yes.

Information that's on the Internet, on the website, um, as far as?

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What was I saying?

Thank God.

So you can be working remotely or you could be working hybrid so that you're, you know you're trading off on that on those schedules.

And I'm putting the links in the chat.

Thank you.

And I, you know, while we can't promise that you'll be hired, we do have interns that are hired either by the agency they work for or by another state agency after the end of their internship.

Barbara, you might there's also opportunities if maybe if you don't get it for the fall semester, there's a a round that opens up for the spring because we have students who will graduate or if you're here for a two year or more program, you know your file stays active for the next academic year as well. There are also on campus.

Um, employment opportunities. There are departments that hire students to work and it would be at an hourly rate. Right now the state of Illinois minimum wage is $13.00 an hour. I think that's not too different from like, what an hourly is for the GA position. I'm not sure about Gypsy, how that works out.

Uh so again, if you did not have an immediate offer for the Gypsy or the GA, there is potential for on campus employment in all sorts of places, from our campus rec department, you food service, to our library and to student life or the student union. So there's jobs all over campus. And again, you know, if it may not be the first round, it can be for the spring semester or for the next academic year.

Um, our one of our student ambassadors in the office of Admission. He was a grad student and he didn't have a GPS I placement for the fall, but one opened up this spring and so he left us to work with one of the state agencies and he's thrilled and we're sad to see him go, but he's going to still volunteer to give tours and stuff in the admission office. So he's very excited and we're happy and thrilled for him. So there are still opportunities out there.

I see a question about the percentage of graduates getting internship work and not getting and grad students. Yes. And from that standpoint, again, it really depends on how many applications you know, how many positions we have and how many applicants we have. So again, I would say, you know, it depends. Like right now we have.

We we are looking at kind of an interim round which is kind of unusual. We had 3540 positions now it's up to 45 that didn't get filled and so we've decided to do a second round for the spring that is going to start a little bit later. This is kind of an unusual practice. But just to give you an example of of the, the balance here, we've got Jason, we're saying like 150 applicants.

Yeah, I've got between 140 and 150 active well applicants that are being submitted to the agencies.

So about 150 applicants and about 50 positions.

So you can see you know one out of three potentially, but the issue is going to be the match because you know you might have.

Like, one of our positions might be a position that none of our our grad students are of that major.

That's possible.

And so that position might not get filled.

UIS global students are eligible for the fee tuition waivers. And the way that works is I know that you're required to play to pay upfront. And So what you would do is you would pay up front and then once you have received then we will add our, the tuition waiver on at the point in time that we have indicated you've registered and when we apply tuition waivers. So what's the tuition?

Favor gets applied to your student account. The bursar has informed us that within 7 to 10 days that overpayment to your account will be direct deposited into your bank account as long as you have direct deposit on your student account. So we're really encouraging all of our interns to be sure that they have direct deposit on their student account, so that can happen quickly.

And the university has a relationship with PNC Bank. That's a bank that's got several offices here in the city of Springfield, and they have representatives that attend the International student orientation and at the graduate taking care of business orientation for our domestic students. And so if you do not have a bank in the area, you can also set up a bank account here in the United States.

And you could use that for your overpayment or for your refund.

We do understand that for some countries there can be you know, a big deal between transition of funds just because of the rate of exchange. And so that's why we want to make sure it's direct deposits to try to avoid of as much of that as possible. And of course where you have that direct deposit located is your choice.

And I am dropping a link to the PNC Bank information. They do do international transfers and it explains how they do that.

So just in case you're curious and planning ahead.

Alright.

One other I was.

Do we? Ohh. I was gonna say go ahead, Barbara.

I was gonna say one other thing that I forgot to mention is that to remain a GSI intern you have to be taking a credits per semester. And while UIS generally considers a full time student for international students to be 9 credits, GPSI is considered a special program in that 8 credits is considered full time. So as an international student you are only required to take a credits when you're in GPS I.

And I was just gonna point out, we are coming a little bit over our half an hour. If there is any questions, please don't hesitate to drop them into the chat. This is being recorded and will be available sometime within the next week on our website. We have a webinar library that we put on our visit page and that address is.

Gonna put this in the chat.

Go.us.edu/visit and if you Scroll down on the bottom right right side there's a link to our webinars but also our webinar library.

So if you have any questions about GPS, IGA or Ilsede, please feel free to reach out to us and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Alright. Well thank you everybody for being a part of our Virtual Open House. We are so glad you joined us today. Thank you, Ahmed. We are glad that you found this very important, this informative. If again don't if you don't hesitate to to reach out to us if you have any questions in the chat, I put the links to each of the three different programs and contact information is in those websites. Barbara, thank you so much for being here tonight. Jason, thank you so much.

As well, everybody, you have a great evening.

Thank you, Lisa.

Hey, goodnight.

Bye everybody.