Find An Internship

The Anthropology Department Internship Coordinator can help you locate placements and evaluate organizations that you find. After you sit down for an initial inquiry and brainstorming session, they will help you find placement in a field of your interest. 

As long as there are things you are passionate about, a vast array of opportunities exist locally, nationally, and even internationally. Sometimes these take a lot of advanced planning, however, so plan to work with the Internship Coordinator months in advance--possibly even a year in advance, if you are looking for a competitive non-local internship. We can also focus on internships with good job prospects at private-sector companies. Internships don't necessarily have to be "anthropological," because you can think anthropologically about just about anything!

Here are some tips and resources for finding internships:

  1. Work with the Anthropology Internship Coordinator, who hears about internships all the time and has a drawer full of organizations that former students found but didn't utilize.
  2. Options for working with skeletal remains are very limited, but FACTS is about as good as it gets anywhere! We can also look nationwide for other options, such as museums (e.g., the Field Museum in Chicago and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History).
  3. Archaeological labs are well-represented in our internship program, and many State and National historic sites offer internships that include housing. In addition to contacting the site/park directly, several internships will be listed through the National Parks Service, whose Pathways program, in particular, aims to be a career preparation track. Texas Parks and Wildlife also has a robust internship program in natural and cultural resource fields. Land surveying companies, CRM firms, and other agencies in the area are also options, and the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission offers the paid, competitive Preservation Scholars Program.
  4. Opportunities to work with non-human primates include zoos and animal sanctuaries (where much of your work will also be with animals other than primates) or at medical research facilities. The research labs we work with invest in the proper care and enrichment of their primates. Students with a strong background in primate behavior may also have opportunities to conduct observational studies. The Texas Biomedical Research Institute has competitive paid internships, as well as unpaid opportunities, and these include working with their veterinary staff in addition to other biological research internships. Finally, primate sanctuaries, everywhere from San Antonio to Hawaii, generally offer housing.
  5. Internships that work with groups of living people constitute the widest range of opportunities, and the challenge is mainly about narrowing your range of interests. The rest of this list focuses mainly on internships with non-profits. It's important to be aware that organizations might not even mention internships, but opportunities may be available.
  6. By far, the best tool for discovering new organizations is Google (or whatever search engine you prefer). Use keywords that include both WHERE you can intern and different combinations of terms related to your interests. For example "Austin alternative medicine" or "San Antonio mental health." Work it until you hit the right keywords. Generally, you'll see interesting organizations pop up immediately.
  7. Mission Capital maintains a job board, including internships, for non-profits in the Austin area. Austin's public radio station KUT features a different non-profit organization every month. Here's an archive of their featured non-profits
  8. Greenlights for Non-Profit Success lists internships nation wide at their member organizations. Another directory of volunteer and internship opportunities nation wide is Volunteer Match.
  9. For internships anywhere in the country that deal broadly with environmental conservation, check out the Student Conservation Association.
  10. BE CAREFUL: Interns have become a (usually free) commodity in today's job market, and many, many companies now exist that profit by charging students money for the service of connecting them with internships around the world, often for two weeks of unpaid work combined with food, lodging, and tourist excursions. The quality of these for-profit services varies widely, so be cautious. The Anthropology Department prefers to work out opportunities directly with organizations for semester-long substantive internships with little or no additional costs beyond tuition and fees.
  11. For internships with private-sector companies--who very often use internships as gateways to entry-level jobs--take advantage of Career Services and Jobs4Cats. Career Services has extensive contacts and experience experience regarding commercial employers, and they offer a full range of services for finding and applying for jobs. Better yet, if you received or are going for a degree from Texas State, their services remain available to you... forever. Note that compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act requires, in essence, that "for-profit" companies either pay interns or else structure internships clearly focused on benefiting interns instead of the business. With all that in mind, you can search massive job boards like Indeed and GlassDoor while filtering your results for internships.
  12. Be sure to do a search on jobs.gov for internships from the Federal Government, including internships in San Antonio and Austin. Some of these are paid, and include popular options like the National Parks Service and the Smithsonian.

Important Note About On-Campus Internships

We have terrific opportunities in archaeology and forensic anthropology right here on campus at the Center for Archaeological Studies (CAS) and the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (FACTS).

CAS does not require you to volunteer with the center prior to having an internship with them. But please be aware that preference is given to students who have completed at least 30 hours of volunteer work at that a FACTS lab prior to applying for an internship at FACTS. That means you should be volunteering with FACTS during at least part of the semester prior to the one in which you intern.