Fellowships

Request a Fellow

The MIT Public Service Center (PSC) offers paid fellowships for MIT students to work on community service projects during January and the summer break. The Public Service Fellowship program provides the finances and support necessary for students to work intensively on projects that provide sustainable benefits to underserved communities.

Community members, community organizations, and non-profit organizations are invited to submit descriptions of projects they would like a Fellow to work on.

What makes a suitable fellowship project?

  • Fellows can only work on projects that build capacity and produce long-term, sustainable benefit for their community partners. Capacity building can be contrasted to 'direct service', in which volunteers provide services that help and individual or community in the short term, but provide little or no lasting benefit to the community.
  • Fellowship projects require a high level of leadership and responsibility from MIT students.
  • Projects need to be well defined, but must allow the MIT student to make significant contribution in planning as well as implementation, and to participate in decisions and project modifications.
  • The project scope must be such that an MIT student can make significant progress or complete the project within the fellowship period. (January fellowships pay for up to 160 hours work over 4 weeks, Summer fellowships pay for up to 400 hours over 10 weeks).
  • The community partner must be prepared to provide an on-site supervisor to oversee and advise the Fellow, and to communicate frequently with the PSC Fellowship Coordinator.

Fellowship Selection Process

If you have a project in mind that meets these criteria, follow the guidelines for submitting a project (see below). Project descriptions that contain all the required information will be posted on the PSC website for MIT students to investigate. If a student is interested in your project, he/she will contact you directly, and you must work together to produce a detailed work plan before the student can submit a Public Service Fellowship proposal to the PSC staff.

Fellows are selected by an MIT committee, but if several Fellows are interested in your project, we may ask your preferences to assist us with the final selection. The whole fellowship application process, from posting projects to fellowship acceptances, usually takes 6-8 weeks.

There is no guarantee that any students will contact you about a particular project, or that a student who has worked with you to develop your project idea will be selected for a Public Service Fellowship. However, the better the collaboration between student and community partner, the better the chance of a fellowship being awarded.

Submitting a Project Description

Community members are invited to submit project descriptions well before the deadlines for students to apply for fellowships - see the annual timeline for more information. Because projects will be posted as they are received, projects sent early in the submission period will have the greatest chance to be seen and selected by MIT students interested in Public Service Fellowships.

Project descriptions must include:
  • Community, community organization, or non-profit organization name
  • Name and job/title of the person submitting the project description
  • Name and job/title of the project supervisor
  • Mailing address
  • Phone numbers (please indicate whether the numbers are main office, direct work line, home, cell - also when it's okay to call each number)
  • Fax
  • Email
  • Reasons for requesting a Fellow, e.g. project is particularly suitable for MIT students, past success with Fellows, commitment to partnering with MIT
  • Project description for website (100-300 words). Explain the need for the project, what the Fellow will do, and how the project fits into larger-scale work and objectives. This description may be posted on the website with minor revisions. Your text should be clear, concise, and attractive to students
  • Qualifications, preferences and requirements, if any (e.g. particular language or computer skills, experience working with children, availability at weekends).
  • Contact information that you would like posted on the web (e.g. the name of someone willing to talk to students, work phone, and email).

Please e-mail this information to Alison at fellowships-staff@mit.edu or fax it to 617-258-9357 with the subject line "Fellowship Project Description."