WHO Internships

Internships are a unique and value experience.  I strongly believe that more students should have the opportunity to travel and experience other organizations and environments .  These experiences often provide new education experiences and present new ideas.  Too often we have students, researchers and employees who have a limited view of the world and what organizations and efforts exist.  

For students in Community Health Sciences, internships at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva can be extremely valuable learning environments.  

Some key points about internships at the WHO:

• WHO Internships are extremely competitive (receiving ~7,000 applications a year for less than 1,000 internships)
• You can only apply to one area within WHO — so you need to know what department (area of interest ) you are the most interested in.  See http://www.who.int/entity/en/ 
• WHO Internships are not paid, and applications are taken twice a year.  More information can be found here: http://www.who.int/employment/internship/en/
• You are more likely to be selected for an internship if you have strong technical skills (i.e. biostatistics, systematic review, programming, etc).  
• Start planning in September if you plan to go during the summer.  The World Health Assembly occurs in May and is a unique and valuable experience.

University of Calgary student presentations about WHO student internships.  Contact them for more information.

• Dean Yergens (2010)
• Natalie Molodecky and Duyen Nguyen (2011)
• Helen Tam, Tharsiya Nagulesapillai and Dr. Evan Minty (2012) 
• Rachel Jolley (2013)

Other Internships:

• World Bank
• Institute for Health Metrics
• OECD
• NASA (contact: Paul MacBeth)

Other References:
Is the WHO Becoming Irrelevant?
Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/08/is_the_who_becoming_irrelevant?page=0,0

Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy
Ross Perlin (2012)
http://www.amazon.com/Intern-Nation-Nothing-Little-Economy/dp/1844678830/