WashPIRG (Public Interest Research Group) Internship Program

Put your education to work by solving real social problems with WashPIRG this semester!

With a WashPIRG internship, you can get course credit and learn skills like how to work with the media, research policy issues, and organize support for a campaign.  These internships are excellent resume builders, and will build skills and experience relevant to any degree program.  We are looking for students who are motivated, energetic, creative and who want to make real social change.  Internships are offered every quarter.

To apply, contact Meg Gardner, WashPIRG campus organizer, at 206-543-9628, or by email at meg@washpirgstudents.org.  

Campaign Internships available:

Washington Voter’s Project:
For years politicians did not pay attention to students and the issues we care about because we did not vote.  However, that is changing.  In 2004 and 2006 the student vote increased.  In November, we have a chance to finally solidify that young people vote and need to be paid attention to but it’s critical we build off the excitement around the primaries and have even larger numbers of us vote this November.  Here at UW, we are working as a coalition with ASUW, GPSS, libraries, and several student organizations to ensure that students here are going to the polls on November 4th.  

Campus Climate Challenge:
We’ll be working to make sure Washington increases public transit options in the Seattle area.  So we’ll be organizing several events on campus to gather signatures on petitions and banners to show support.  We’ll get faculty and administrators to endorse the campaign.  We’ll also just run some fun educational events on transportation options and global warming solutions.  

Truth About Credit
The average student graduates with significant credit card debt, close to $4,000 worth—a lot of times because students are using credit cards to pay for textbooks and even tuition!  More significantly, we are getting ripped off by the credit card companies, who rely on unfair practices to pile the debt on to cardholders.  This semester we are working to get the campus to adopt principles that will clean up the credit card practices on campus.  We are also doing “counter” credit card marketing to spoof credit card vendors and educate the campus.  

Affordable Textbooks
As we all know, textbooks are expensive!  The textbook market is a broken one because the consumers (students) don’t have a choice in the product we are buying.  We are going to be working on promoting the use of open textbooks by professors which are textbooks published online for free, and also build up a book rental program where students can rent their books for a semester for a much lower cost!