Practical Experience
Human Rights and Human Diversity offers a number of ways for you to gain practical experience working or volunteering in fields connected to human rights, diversity, and social justice.
Community Service-Learning
HR261: Multiculturalism is taught as a Community Service-Learning Course that gets you experience in real workplaces.
Community Service-Learning (CSL) is a teaching method that encourages students to draw connections between knowledge they gain through their studies and practical applications in the community. Students are engaged in voluntary activities while integrating their experiences with academic course work. CSL's objectives are balance between specific academic goals on the one hand, and building community capacity on the other. It fosters student leadership and enhances connections to the community at large.
Professionalization Seminar
In HR300: Professionalization Seminar, students hone many professional skills, but the centrepiece is an assignment in which students work in teams to write real grant proposals for local non-profit organizations. How would you like to add that to your resumé?
Youth Leaders on Board
The Youth Leaders on Board (YLOB) initiative on our Brantford Campus is managed by the Leadership program. YLOB matches undergraduate students with non-profit boards in Brantford, Brant and surrounding communities who looking to bring in a youth perspective.
Internship and Field Placement Courses
Internships and field placements can be valuable to students both academically (a chance to reflect on the relationship between material studied in class and practice in the field) and as career preparation (e.g., practical job search techniques, work-related skills, developing contacts and networking skills that may lead to full-time employment).
We currently offer four fully-funded 90-day summer internships in Ghana, Africa for third-year students. Positions are awarded on a competitive basis.
We offer two 0.5-credit courses that offer you a change to combine that academic reflection and career preparation with unique experiences:
These two courses have been designed to provide you with opportunities to gain academic recognition for relevant experience you may gain through internships or international volunteering.
Rules and Regulations Governing HR391 and HR392
The program is willing to assist in identifying local placements to be pursued on a 7-hours per week basis during the Fall or Winter academic term. Students are normally expected to have completed HR300 before performing one of these placements.
Student are also welcome to identify and obtain their own appropriate internships and international volunteering field placements. To assist with this search, the program maintains a list of positions that have been previously identified (see Internship and Volunteer Opportunities below). This list, however, is not exhaustive, so students should not limit their research to the possibilities listed.
Students interested in registering for HR391 or HR392 should first discuss this possibility with the Human Rights and Human Diversity (HRHD) program coordinator before contacting potential academic supervisors or placement organizations.
1. Approval must be received prior to beginning the placement.
There are two aspects to receiving approval:
- Students must identify a faculty member in the program who will agree to be their academic supervisor for HR391 or HR392. The academic supervisor grades the assignments associated with the placement.
- Students must receive the HRHD program coordinator’s approval of their placement at least one month prior to beginning their placement.
2. Students must have completed the academic prerequisites prior to beginning the placement.
The prerequisites for both HR391 and HR392 are:
- Permission of the program coordinator
- Completion of at least 10.0 credits
- HR100 or HR/CT260
- Cumulative GPA of 7.0 at the time of application.
3. Minimum Length of the Placement
Placements must normally be for a minimum of 7 hours per week for 12 weeks or 84 hours
Internship and Volunteer Opportunities
There's nothing like putting your ideas into practice to cement your learning, develop a broader perspective, start building a network of future contacts and colleagues, and develop valuable career preparation.
In the fall, we will add links here for internship and volunteering opportunities as well as potential sources of funding. You may find ideas for internships or field placements for credit in HR391 or HR 392 (see above).
In the meantime, here's something to get you started:
- Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP): Place your name in an inventory for possible selection for full-time and part-time student jobs with the federal government.