State Government Student Internship Stipend Program
Welcome State Agencies
The North Dakota State Government Student Internship Stipend Program provides an opportunity for students to work in state government where they will be exposed to the work of governing and introduced to the increasingly complex challenges facing North Dakota.
The program is administered by Human Resource Management Services (HRMS), a division of the ND Office of Management and Budget.
The State Government Student Internship Stipend Program
The State Government Student Internship Stipend Program is designed to integrate education with practical experience. It is an opportunity for a student engaged in a specific course of study to assist an agency with a project or initiative related to the student’s academic work. The Internship Stipend Program will help supplement the funds agencies have available so students can more readily be hired.
The purpose of hiring an intern is to provide the student with knowledge of and professional experience in those job duties and skills within a specific ND State Government Executive Branch (excluding Higher Education) that match their collegiate background. The intern’s job duties must be related to the intern’s academic career goal or field of study. A student intern should not be used as a mere “gopher” or to only perform basic, repetitive clerical tasks such as filing, copying, or delivering mail.
Executive Branch Agencies (excluding Higher Education) must submit a completed Internship Work Plan (SFN 59150) to HRMS for approval.
The internship work plan should be designed to provide a training opportunity that is meaningful to the intern as well as helpful to your agency. As you identify elements needed to create a work plan and evaluation criteria keep these considerations in mind:
- The job duties and responsibilities must align with the job class. To develop a familiarity with the agencies operations, offer a wide variety of experiences to maximize student learning, specify course or subject knowledge needed to participate in the internship. Recognize that lower level responsibilities are assigned with the intent of developing progressively complex responsibilities.
- Develop a work plan that outlines the student’s progressive responsibilities and advancement. The plan should identify the knowledge and skills required to perform the different levels of work. Condense these into learning objectives or goals that define what each segments of training covers, how much time the training plan is expected to take and what the sequence of learning objectives is.
- Determine the evaluation criteria. Track the student’s progress using the training criteria. Provide feedback to the student as they progress through the work plan.
At the end of the internship, both the intern and the agency should complete an exit interview. This provides HRMS valuable feedback for future planning.
Anyone desiring further information regarding internships in state government should read the Agency Internship Factsheet. For questions or comments contact:
Barbara Dammen
Human Resource Management Services
600 E. Boulevard Ave. - 14th Floor
Bismarck, ND 58505-0120
701.328.3374 · phone
800.366.6888 · TDD
bdammen@nd.gov
