Student Opportunities

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Internships

  • Internships are a great way to get academic credit while exploring vocational paths or discerning if a "dream job" is the right one for you. There are many opportunities on campus, in Greensboro, and farther afield--and we strongly encourage all majors to undertake one before graduating. In the past we have had students do a teaching internship with an English professor (especially helpful if you want to go to graduate school or teach k-12), as well as do archival and research internships on campus.  Off campus, we've had students do non-profit and literacy, tv and multimedia scripting, publishing and marketing, and even PR or journalism internships.  Please see your advisor or Cheryl Bridges in the Career & Community Learning Center for more info.

Independent Studies

  • The department offers independent study opportunities at the 260, 360, and 460 levels for sophomores, juniors, and seniors respectively. A student having a GPA of at least 3.0 may submit a proposal for an independent study provided that the subject is not covered in a regular course taught at either Guilford or one of the other local institutions in the PICA Consortium (i.e., Bennett College, Greensboro College, North Carolina A & T, UNCG). A student must obtain a faculty sponsor who has appropriate expertise with the subject.

                The student must submit to the English department chairperson a fully worked-out proposal prior to the beginning of the semester in which the independent study will take place; the department chair will then bring the proposal to the full department for review. This proposal must describe concretely the subject, scope, method, and materials that the student will use during the project. The proposal should also indicate the evaluation procedures that the student and the prospective faculty sponsor have agreed upon as well as the frequency of planned meetings. Ordinarily, student and sponsor meet weekly to discuss the student's progress.

                Independent studies should be understood to involve serious and intensive inquiry. The projects that result should be substantial. One rule of thumb is that for a standard reading-intensive independent study, a student should produce 5 pages of non-fiction prose for each book read. More technical studies (e.g., grammar, journalistic writing) may involve different formulas for the extent of the written product. Creative-writing independent studies usually involve producing a body of original material (e.g., fiction, poetry); the extent of the requirement will be determined by the student and the faculty sponsor.

                Students may do teaching assistantships as independent studies. The student and teacher will work out an appropriate set of responsibilities, to be approved by the department chair. Such responsibilities might include several of the following: reading all course assignments, attending class meetings, helping to plan the syllabus, tutoring individual students outside of class, meeting with peer-edit groups, maintaining regular office hours, being a checkpoint for topics or abstracts or outlines for papers, providing comments on initial drafts of student papers, making presentations in class and/or conducting an entire class, reading and providing feedback on student journals, correcting short exercises or reading quizzes, providing input into midterm and final grades, keeping a journal.

                Students can count one independent study toward the major’s 4-course Emphasis requirement. Independent studies can not be used to satisfy one of the major’s 4 Core requirements.