Student Experience for American and Global Studies Students
The School of American and Global Studies offers several opportunities for learning through experience outside of the classroom. Our students volunteer in several capacities in South Dakota and beyond. Serving as teachers, translators, and interpreters, or working with underserved and underrepresented populations students apply their academic training, language skills and intercultural competence to give back to the community.
Service learning gives students an opportunity to use their academic training to serve the community. It puts them in direct contact with the languages and cultures they study and helps them better understand the challenges and responsibilities of being world citizens. Faculty facilitate these encounters, providing students with the necessary training, mentorship and support.
Some Opportunities
- Our Spanish program regularly offers a service learning course in which students learn about the history of and the contemporary issues surrounding Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States, particularly in the Midwest.
- Outside the classroom, students spend the semester teaching English to adult Spanish-speakers in the Brooking area or helping Spanish-speaking students in local schools.
- Every year (Spring or Summer semester) MLGS sends four to seven student volunteers to Dilley, Texas to serve as translators and interpreters for women and children seeking asylum in the United States. Visit for further information.
French, German and Spanish faculty members accompany students each summer to study in Latin America or Europe for a month or more. All language majors and any other interested students are encouraged to engage in longer-term study programs for a semester or a year in order to truly enter into the culture and language. Students in recent years have studied in places such as France, Canada, Germany, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Spain. Modern Languages faculty and the Office of International Affairs will be happy to help you find the right program for you. To discuss options in Spanish, see professor Christi Garst-Santos.
Past Trips
- Peru - Live, study and learn in Cusco, Peru, May 2017. Maria Spitz.
- Senegal - interdisciplinary Global Studies Program, May 2016. Molly Enz
- Spain - Live, study and learn in Valencia, Spain, May 2015. Macarena Escondrillas and Luiza Adamyan
- Alternative Spring Break service-learning Program, March 2015. Molly Enz
Internships and Careers
This is the most popular internship opportunity for political science majors. It is taken spring semester in Pierre, with the legislative session from January into early March. You can take this for nine credits of POLS 494 (Internship). Three of those credits count for political science, the other six are general electives towards graduation. You can then take South Dakota Legislative Issues online for 12 credits total. This internship pays approximately $5,000 and the semester concludes in early March. Our students are given real responsibility in Pierre. For those interested in legal studies, this is a good alternative to internships in law firms, where the experience is somewhat limited because of confidentiality issues.
Daktronics is a model of collaboration between education and industry. Begun in 1968 by two SDSU professors of electronic engineering, it has grown into an international leader in electronic scoreboards, programmable displays systems and large screen video displays. The opportunities for our students are many and varied, from sales to administration, project coordination, legislative-regulatory and many other positions. Internships are paid and go from June through December, or January through May.
City management is often called 鈥渢he hottest career you鈥檝e probably never heard of.鈥 What do they do? They handle many of the basic functions that you may have thought were handled by elected officials. However, running a city requires background that a part-time elected official would not have the time or expertise to handle. 85% of U.S. cities with populations greater than 2,500 use professional managers. Those are a lot of potential jobs. Moreover, according to the International City/County Management Association, in 1971, 71% of professional city, town and county managers were age 40 or younger; 26% under age 30. Today, about 13% are under 40, and only 1% were age 30 or younger! In short, there are a lot of coming retirements and not many people to fill the void.
