Intern with Learning Life
Learning Life engages student interns online all year, in spring, summer and fall. New interns typically start in January, May or August, though other starting dates are possible depending on the student’s academic calendar.
Help Build Democracy and Diplomacy for a more Caring World
About Learning Life
Learning Life is a Washington DC-based nonprofit developing inclusive learning communities in order to widen and deepen participation in democracy and diplomacy for our interdependent yet divided world.
With this mission in mind, we run three programs.
The Family Diplomacy Initiative (FDI) connects people worldwide across lines of country, class, race and religion via the internet to share and learn together about families and citizen diplomacy with an eye to developing a corps of trained family diplomats to advocate for a more caring world.
Citizen Diplomacy International (CDI) gathers diplomacy scholars, students, professionals, and volunteers every three months online via Zoom to share news and presentations on CD research and practice, local to global, with an eye to building a vibrant global CD sector for a more participatory, equitable and sustainable world.
Our Democracy Learning Community (DLC) is an association of individuals and organizations working together to strengthen democracy by developing engaging events, products, services and spaces that nurture fun, learning, networking, collaboration and wider, deeper citizen participation.
About the Internship
Learning Life accepts resumes from high school, college and graduate students in the USA, and in some cases abroad, interested in interning with us remotely or hybrid. The internship ranges from 8 to 32 hours per week, depending on students’ grade level and/or academic requirements, though most of our interns work about 10 hours/week.
For students in the Washington DC area, the internship is hybrid, or more precisely, mostly online, but with 1-3 in-person for events. For students outside the DC area, the internship is strictly online. Given certain conditions (reliable internet connection, meeting-feasible time zones, languages spoken, advanced English speaking and writing ability, etc.), we also accept applications from university students outside the USA.
Depending on each student’s interests and skills plus our organizational needs, interns support the above-mentioned three programs, assisting with a variety of tasks including research and writing; local-to-global communications and list development via social media, email and phone; poster, video and website design and development; fundraising research and outreach, and more.
The internship typically starts in early-to-late January, mid-to-late May or late August, though other starting dates are possible depending on each student’s academic calendar. On a weekly basis during the internship, interns have 1-4 meetings per week, mostly online if in the DC area or all online if outside the DC region. All interns meet via Zoom once per week with Learning Life’s Director, Paul Lachelier, to go over work completed, assign new tasks, and answer any questions.
Internship Benefits
The internship is unpaid, but offers substantive, resume-building experience working on innovative democracy and diplomacy initiatives, and a formal reference, Linkedin recommendation, and a recommendation letter upon request given satisfactory performance.
Students who intern 20 or more hours per week get 2-4 hours per week of additional, tailored professional development support (i.e., improve your Linkedin profile, grow your Linkedin network, do info interviews with people/orgs you’re interested in, improve your cover letter and/or resume) strictly for the intern’s benefit.
Students who excel in their internship, and wish to continue or return to interning with Learning Life can upgrade to Level 2 and Level 3 internships, pending availability of these positions. Like Level 1, described above, Level 2 and 3 are semester or summer long. At Level 1, students do a variety of tasks to give them a wider sense of Learning Life’s work. At Level 2 and 3, interns do work more focused on their interests. At Level 3, students also get the 2-4 hours/week of tailored professional development described above included in their internship hours, for a minimum of 10 total internship hours per week.
To learn about some of Learning Life’s most recent interns, and why they chose to intern with us, visit our People Page.
The Interns We Are Looking For
Applicants should be interested in politics, democracy, diplomacy, international affairs, education, communications and/or children and families, and also be organized, detail-oriented, motivated and punctual. The ability to read, write and speak French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, or any other major language at an advanced to fluent level is a plus, as are poster and video-making skills.
To learn about some of Learning Life’s most recent interns, and learn why they chose to intern with us, visit our People Page.
How to Apply
Send your resume to email@learninglife.info. Students with digital poster or video-making skills should include 2-4 examples of their work. No need for a cover letter. Please indicate in your email when you would like to start interning with Learning Life (January, May, late August, or another date). We will contact you to schedule an interview if your resume matches what we are looking for. Thank you for your interest!