Twenty-eight students are spending their summer working with sustainability organizations around Atlanta. The Sustainable Communities Internship Program (SCI) is a collaboration between Community-Based Learning, a program within the Office of Experiential and Engaged Learning, and the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE). The program provides community partners with support and resources to build capacity for their programs, while the interns gain real-world experience related to sustainability and community engagement. Most of the internships are full-time and students are paid a stipend for their work. They also can register their internship for audit credit through CareerBuzz.  

Interns interview and are matched with community partners based on their interests and fit with the project goals. Third-year student Erin Russell describes her excitement in finding an internship that connected with her LMC major and minor in Sustainable Communities sharing, “The program sounded like a miracle– a paid 12-week internship… in an interesting field… run through the school… with an emphasis on helping local businesses and nonprofits. Everyone I told about it was jealous– they didn’t have to be, of course, since the program allows students in any discipline.”  

Interns also participate in a Wednesday night seminar which meets for one hour, in-person at Georgia Tech and partner sites. The seminar introduces students to theories of grassroots sustainability and provides students with an opportunity to reflect on their experiences in the field. Each site visit intentionally exposes interns to neighborhoods and histories that they are less familiar with. Most recently, the interns helped plan community engagement and supported the Living Building ambitions at Cascade Springs Nature Reserve, which is a project inspired by Georgia Tech’s own Living Building, Kendeda.

The site visits and seminars are the backbone of the program, bringing all the interns together to learn more about Atlanta and sustainability. As a Decatur born-and-raised student, I thought I knew a lot about Atlanta, but the program has brought Southwest Atlanta to the spotlight, presenting a whole different world of resilience only a couple of miles from my hometown.  

In addition to supporting the community partners and developing career competencies, the program’s goals focus on developing a broad, supportive professional network and inspiring a sense of hope and motivation about their capacity to collaborate with others to make change. During the seminars, interns are split into groups of 5-6 for group projects. Russell’s group, self-named “The Official Reps (™)” has one student from every college at Tech and has found a shared interest in sustainability and community building that paved the way for friendships. After the site visits, interns complete a joint reflection journal that asks students to connect their visit to their internship.

I’ve been able to learn from each visit as we wander– swatting bugs together at the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance or sweating over design choices at Lifecycle Building Center.  The enthusiasm around sustainability that we bring to each meeting has made hikes and limited-air-conditioned excursions in the Georgia summer bearable– sometimes even entertaining. 

This program is a rare and incredible community-based learning opportunity sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Success (OUESS) and the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE) alongside many Atlanta organizations and supportive donors. Russell reflects, “It has shaped the course of my summer and given me a new perspective on the city I’ve lived in my whole life– made possible by a healthy amount of carbon-efficient carpooling. I’m lucky to be a part of it, and excited to see the possibilities that Tech could make within neighborhoods only a few miles away.”