PKG Fall 2020 Update
(Last updated 9/09/2020)
Experiential Learning Opportunities (ELO) Guarantee
As announced in President Reif’s July 7 email, MIT “will offer each student, whether remote or on-campus, a paid undergraduate research, teaching or service opportunity, with a stipend up to $1,900″ and this includes work with the PKG Center! Below is an overview of PKG programs that are eligible for this stipend. Use your virtual fall to build critical capacity for nonprofit and government agencies assisting communities with COVID-19 relief and recovery, advance equity work, or tackle environmental challenges.
Visit Handshake and search using the “ELO public service & social impact” label to find virtual opportunities that fit your interest, skills, and schedule.
If you are interested in leveraging your federal work-study funding for a paid position with a nonprofit, government, or public agency, reach out to studentworker@mit.edu to check your eligibility.
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Eligible PKG Center Programs
- Social Impact Internships: Social Impact Internships deepen your analytical, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills by applying what you learn in the classroom to “real-world” challenges. Refine your leadership and communication abilities while collaborating with nonprofits, government agencies, or social enterprises! Strengthen your professional network and your resume, while you strengthen communities.
- Let’s Talk Voting (Civic Engagement): Do you care about the 2020 election? Want to understand how to amplify the role of voting in your community, and specifically at MIT? Join Let’s Talk Voting to build a movement around inclusive voter engagement strategies and how voter access is a social change movement. You will join a group of students who will spend each week diving into a social justice issue – like race, gender, and class – to understand how that issue impacts the reality of how we talk about and encourage one another to vote. Through the semester you’ll connect the academic, with self-driven research and group dialogue, to reality by having conversations with peers about voting and the themes that you are learning about.
- Community-Informed Field Immersion (CIFI): Join a cohort of fellow MIT students and complete a team-aligned remote project scoped by a community partner organization (such as the Brigham and Womens Hospital Global Health Equity and COPE COVID-19 Initiative on Navajo Nation). Engage in group learning opportunities that explore the contextual factors underlying complex social challenges in these place-based locations. Projects use your skill sets (like data analytics, programming, problem-solving, and communication) and build capacity for community agencies. PKG-led preparation workshops and reflection meetings provide a space for you to connect your academic work and your project work. You’ll also have an on-site supervisor, and the PKG Center provides weekly meetings to offer support. This program runs 10 hours/week for 14 weeks.
- ACE Intensive: Develop social change workshops and resources to provide to your peers and other audiences, incorporating communication with community and public interest organizations, alumni, and stakeholders. Each week you’ll participate in a whole-group meeting with PKG staff and participate in a workshop on either a social change methodology (e.g., advocacy, civic engagement, personal responsibility, research, etc); social justice theme (e.g., climate change, health, technology for good), or complex context issue (e.g., Race, Gender and Sexual Identity, Food Insecurity, Environmental Justice). You’ll also perform team-based research on organizations in Boston and Cambridge, and connect with alumni to learn from practitioners and individuals engaged in social change work in the community.
- PKG Fellowships (IAP): Through an IAP PKG Fellowship, you can develop and implement a service project in collaboration with a community agency, pilot a social enterprise, or explore a public service career. As a PKG Fellow, you will work collaboratively with your partner community agency and receive guidance from community partners and PKG Center staff. You’ll have a chance to apply what you’ve studied in the classroom to real-world challenges and have opportunities to reflect on your experience throughout the process. The program is open to all registered MIT students but is competitive. Required experience and skills depend on the specific project. Students propose projects in collaboration with community agencies. IAP Fellowships are full-time, typically last 3-5 weeks and all selected IAP Fellows receive a stipend of $2,500. IAP ’21 PKG Fellows will work remotely but may collaborate with community partners around the world. The deadline to apply for IAP ’21 Fellowships is October 20th at noon.
- PKG IAP: Health: Immerse yourself in the field of public healthcare! You don’t have to wait until graduation to support healthcare in Boston. Through PKG IAP, our one-month immersion program, you can support local health efforts by collaborating with practitioners in the field. You’ll provide meaningful public service, implement specific projects, and learn about policy and practice in the United States.
Additional Fall Opportunities
While the opportunities below do not fall under the Experiential Learning Opportunities guarantee, each is designed to strengthen your skills and understanding of public service.
- IDEAS: IDEAS is MIT’s annual social innovation challenge and has been bringing MIT students together with mentors from industry, academia, and community organizations for 20 years to tackle pressing social and environmental issues through innovation. Any MIT student may recruit or join a team from anywhere to bring a context-relevant innovation to life in collaboration with impacted stakeholders! MIT student-led teams can secure grants of up to $20,000 and teams can hone their ideas with targeted feedback, workshops, and coaching from industry experts.
- Get (Good) Stuff Done: Get (Good) Stuff Done (GGSD) is a multi-office workshop series that prepares you to address social and environmental challenges, work with communities, and develop products sustainably and ethically. The series is developed by a network of MIT partners who provide tools to help you succeed in diverse communities locally around the world.
- PKG Academic Courses: Register today for ” SP.250 Transforming Good Intentions into Good Outcomes” (ranked #1 MIT Discovery course by fall 2019 participants) or ” SP.251 How to Change the World: Experiences from Social Entrepreneurs (In partnership with SOLVE)”
Graduate Opportunities
The PKG Center is committed to supporting students at all stages of their academic and public service lives. Our programs are open to undergraduate and graduate students. Here are some of our programs that are currently open to graduate students:
- PKG Fellowships (IAP): Through an IAP PKG Fellowship, you can develop and implement a service project in collaboration with a community agency, pilot a social enterprise, or explore a public service career. As a PKG Fellow, you will work collaboratively with your partner community agency and receive guidance from community partners and PKG Center staff. You’ll have a chance to apply what you’ve studied in the classroom to real-world challenges and have opportunities to reflect on your experience throughout the process. The program is open to all registered MIT students but is competitive. Required experience and skills depend on the specific project. Students propose projects in collaboration with community agencies. IAP Fellowships are full-time, typically last 3-5 weeks and all selected IAP Fellows receive a stipend of $2,500. IAP ’21 PKG Fellows will work remotely but may collaborate with community partners around the world. The deadline to apply for IAP ’21 Fellowships is October 20th at noon.
- Federal Work-Study: If you are interested in leveraging your federal work-study funding for a paid position with a nonprofit, government, or public agency, reach out to studentworker@mit.edu to check your eligibility for a social impact internship.
- IDEAS: IDEAS is MIT’s annual social innovation challenge and has been bringing MIT students together with mentors from industry, academia, and community organizations for 20 years to tackle pressing social and environmental issues through innovation. Any MIT student may recruit or join a team from anywhere to bring a context-relevant innovation to life in collaboration with impacted stakeholders! MIT student-led teams can secure grants of up to $20,000 and teams can hone their ideas with targeted feedback, workshops, and coaching from industry experts.
- Get (Good) Stuff Done: Get (Good) Stuff Done (GGSD) is a multi-office workshop series that prepares you to address social and environmental challenges, work with communities, and develop products sustainably and ethically. The series is developed by a network of MIT partners who provide tools to help you succeed in diverse communities locally around the world.
Not sure where to start?
If you would like to learn more about our programs and eligibility, feel free to explore our website, connect with the PKG Center team during our office hours, or reach out via email at pkgcenter@mit.edu.
