New scholarships are available for students within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) who have unpaid internships.

Scholarships applications are available to students who have an LAS major and are starting an unpaid internship soon.

To be eligible for the scholarships, students must have a minimum 2.0 GPA with their internship being a minimum of 10 hours per week for eight weeks. Students must also be enrolled in an internship course.

“We had some student requests [for a scholarship],” said Taren Crow, director of LAS career services. “There are some other colleges who do some scholarships for unpaid internships and we were getting feedback from students asking if we had anything like that.”

The money for the scholarships is coming from a gift, the college received this past year.

“An alumni gave anonymously through Curriculum Associates,” said Mary Ullestad-Heneke, the LAS scholarship coordinator. “The donor had certain areas they wanted to support and this specific piece of money was designated to ensure this amount of money goes towards students directly through the unpaid internships.”

This fall was the first time scholarships were awarded to LAS students for unpaid internships, and the scholarship was largely found out by word of mouth from other people.

“It was just a few people [who got the scholarship],” Ullestad-Heneke said. “We anticipate that number growing.”

There is not a set amount of scholarships given, but as more people learn about this scholarship, the number of scholarships awarded is expected to go up. The amount of money awarded to students ranges from between $500-$2,000.

Students can apply for this scholarship by going to the LAS scholarship website and clicking on current students. As they go further down the page, they will see a link for the scholarship there and can click the link to apply. The application is fairly short and asks students questions about the internship, why they applied for it and their financial need.

The application for the scholarships for the spring semester will begin on Nov. 1 and will be open to students until Dec. 6.