Practica Program | School of International Service | American University, Washington DC

Overview

This program is designed to give second-year master’s students real world experience in project management and consulting while preparing them for post-graduate careers.

Students work in teams with expert clients including U.S. and international government agencies, non-profit organizations and businesses to conduct policy and program analysis. Students draw on their substantial research, as well as qualitative and quantitative skills, to prepare final oral and written analysis and recommendations.

The practicums are led by faculty mentors who hold class sessions weekly. Students also participate in hands-on workshops designed to enhance their project management, client relations, oral presentation and writing skills. In addition to sharing the findings with their clients, students present their reports at the SIS Practica Symposium each semester. This spring, the symposium will be held on April 19, 26 and 27, 2013.

Summer 2013 Practica Announcement

Summer 2013 SIS Practicum: Water, Cooperation and Peace

This practicum focuses on evaluating cooperative Palestinian-Israeli water projects as peacebuilding tools. It will be of interest to students across SIS, and in particular to GEP, IPCR, IP, IDP and CRS. The practicum will be led by Dr. Eric Abitbol of SIS. The partner organizations are Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (AIES) in Israel and Water Resources Action Project (WRAP) in the U.S. The team’s research will build on Arava’s “Mitigating Transboundary Wastewater Conflicts” initiative, which seeks to reduce conflict and promote dialogue through shared water management.

The principal research task will be to assess the peacebuilding significance of these cooperative efforts. Team members will do desk-study and research design work in Washington, then collect data in the field through participant-observation, interviews, focus groups, and archival work at the project sites. The course will run from June 15 to July 15 and consist of a period of intensive preparation at AU, ten days of field work in Israel and the West Bank, and a period back at AU for final report preparation and presentation. There are no specific course prerequisites but an application’s competitiveness will be enhanced by showing relevant language skills, prior experience or field work in the region, coursework on or experience with water governance or water projects, and coursework, experience or skills with peace and conflict resolution. Students will be applying for part of their funding from SIS as part of a competitive process. Assuming this application is well done and competitive, we anticipate additional travel-related costs per student of approximately $750.

To be eligible to participate in the SIS summer 2013 practicum, students must have completed 18 MA credits by the end of the spring '13 semester and be in good academic standing. Students who began their MA programs prior to the fall 2012 semester must have also opted-in to the new MA requirements effective fall 2012. (Please consult SIS Graduate Advising if you have any questions about your opt-in status.)