Internship Requirements

Students will complete a 240-hour (6 credit) internship. Students will enroll in HLTH 690 /HLTH 691  in the last two semesters of study. Since students will be registered for classes at SUNY Potsdam, it is expected these internships be at local public health agencies or organizations and that students spend 8-10 hours per week with the agency/organization.

Professional Project Requirements/Guidelines

The culminating experience for the Community Health M.S. is the completion of a project requiring students to synthesize and integrate knowledge acquired during their coursework. As such, the project involves planning, implementing, evaluating and communicating the results of a public health initiative such as a program or intervention.

Students will form a Project Committee to include a faculty member from the Community Health M.S. program who will supervise the project from beginning to completion. The committee will also include a member from the agency in which the project will be implemented, and another SUNY Potsdam faculty member with relevant qualifications. The M.S. Program Coordinator in conjunction with the Committee Chair will approve committee membership. The committee must be selected by the end of the 2nd semester of full-time study or the end of the 4th semester of part-time study.

In the 2nd semester of full-time study or the end of the 4th semester of part-time study, students work with the Internship Coordinator and Project Chair to identify the organization or agency with which to work and to develop a preliminary proprosal. In the 3rd semester of full-time study (7th for parttime), students will register for HLTH 696 . Students will work in conjunction with that organization and committee to develop a project proposal. In other words, they will design a program/intervention that will be implemented with the community. Included in the program proposal will be:

1. Introduction
2. Statement of the problem/Background
3. Literature review (past practice, research)
4. Theoretical Framework
5. Methodology (program plan, research plan, work plan)
6. Evaluation plan
7. References

Before the end of the semester, students will have also prepared and submitted projects that qualify for approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at SUNY Potsdam. The grade in this course will be determined by the quality and feasibility of the completed project proposal. The project proposal must be completed by the end of the semester in which they enrolled in HLTH 696 .

In HLTH 697 , students will implement the project they proposed in HLTH 696 , and then evaluate the results of the project. Students will prepare a professional paper of publishable quality as their final task for the project. Students will also be required to present the results of their project to the Community Health M.S. program faculty. The grade in this course will be determined by the quality of the project implemented and the strength, not of the results, but of the way the results were communicated. The project must be completed by the end of the semester in which they enrolled in HLTH 697 .

Final paper will adhere to the following format and style guidelines:

1. Title page
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
4. Literature review
5. Theoretical framework
6. Methodology
7. Results
8. Discussion
9. Conclusion
10. References
11. Appendices

Format and Style:

1. The paper will be formatted in a manner appropriate for submission to a scholarly journal (such as the American Journal of Public Health, Health Education, or Health Communication).
2. The paper should be cited in APA format.