Below are narrative descriptions of MPA and MPP students' work in recent IPP internship placements:

Host: State of Connecticut, Office of Policy & Management (OPM) | Year: 2024 - 2025 | While an intern with the Revenue Unit of the Budget and Financial Management Division within OPM, intern Chris Tyburski supported developing, drafting, and revising the annual Economic Report of the Governor (ERG). After submitting the biennial budget, Chris worked directly with OPM colleagues to review draft bills relating to revenue, bonding, and appropriations to summarize and develop unit-wide consensus on whether OPM should support passage. 

Host: Town of Simsbury | Year: 2025-2026 | Serving with the Town Manager's Office and Human Resources Department, intern Abigail Boyer contributed to HR policy overhauls, benchmarking pay scales for comparable municipality roles, and managing online training systems for hazardous waste and harassment prevention. Beyond shadowing the Town Manager on major community events, Abigail also contributed to the Town's revamped social media coverage across several platforms.

Host: Hartford Lank Bank | Year: 2023-2024 | Supporting the work of HLB, intern Tyler Havens worked to discover, document, and obtain vacant, abandoned, or tax-delinquent properties in Hartford and revitalize them alongside local developers. Once identified, Tyler supported inspections, formal reports, adherence to city codes to make sure properties were up to date and legal, and navigating budget and grant money effectively for housing costs to support community of gap financing. Through this internship, Tyler worked to advance racial equity and justice in Hartford via housing opportunities for residents, and post-graduation Tyler returned to HLB full time and currently serves as Director of Operations.

Host: Connecticut Housing Finance Authority | Year: 2025-2026 | Serving primarily with the Multifamily unit of CHFA, intern Jacob Johnson made major contributions to statute-mandated annual report which quantifies affordable housing around the state - a report broadly used by CHFA and shared directly with the Governor and each state legislator. Jacob's efforts helped CHFA move from a 84/74% municipal response rate in 2024 to a 96/90% response rate for 2025, underscoring the scope and accuracy of this public facing report to ensure the pursuit of data informed policy decisions.

We Make it Easy for Hosts

We provide hosts with a dedicated staff point person, who will support hosts throughout the process. Interns are also hired as UConn employees, which allows SPP to directly support student HR, tax, and benefit processing, minimizing administrative burdens for hosts. SPP staff also oversee all internship agreement/contract and invoice processing.

Based on university guidelines, IPP internships begin each year on August 23 and conclude each year on May 22. Before students would begin internship roles in August 2026, UConn SPP oversees a comprehensive recruitment, training, application, and interview process for students and hosts. A helpful infographic outlining the 2026-2027 process for hosts is available here: UConn SPP 2026-2027 Internship Process for Hosts

Developing Intern Candidates: SPP staff oversee a required student career development series that prospective students must complete to become IPP program eligible. The goal is to enable candidates to bring their best selves to the application/interview process, represent the School effectively, and prepare students to make compelling arguments for their future career plans.

Recruiting Hosts/Developing Student-Facing Materials: From November through late February each cycle, SPP staff recruit prospective hosts. Once hosts submit their interest survey before our mid-February deadline (details below), SPP staff contact hosts to develop one-page job descriptions. These descriptions will eventually be added to the student-facing internship application packet, complete with detailed instructions and the comprehensive list of internship opportunities to which they can apply.

Application Development/Collection/Distribution to Hosts: Once they receive the comprehensive "Round 1" packet, students have until late March to develop applications. Students submit all applications to SPP staff, who in turn organize materials and distribute to respective hosts directly in complete batches. This process is used for quality control, to avoid administrative burdens on hosts, streamline communication, and uphold program timelines for hosts and students alike.

Host-Driven Interviews: Once they receive student applications, prospective internship host sites directly invite candidates of interest for interviews. Hosts have discretion on scheduling and modality of interviews, but are asked to be accommodating to student requests for modality shifts or flexibility when academic course conflicts arise. Interviews are conducted from late March through late April, with hosts sharing top candidate preferences to SPP staff. Hosts are restricted from making internship offers until an approved time by SPP.

"Early Matches" and Placement: SPP staff contact top student candidates, working to establish as many matches between hosts and top candidates. When students decline early match offers, SPP staff advance to the next preferred candidate, and so forth. This early matching period covers two days post-interviews, and then hosts without confirmed interns are open to offer roles to remaining candidates who've yet to match.

Summer Work - Secondary Application Rounds, Administrative Work, Orientation: For all hosts and students who do not confirm matches in Round 1, SPP replicates the above process on a condensed timeline for "Round 2" in May-June. SPP provides hosts and students with relevant updates and guidance throughout that cycle. For those hosts who confirm a student intern in Round 1, SPP beings student hiring paperwork, internship agreements, supervisor orientation scheduling for early August, and prepare hosts/students for the upcoming internship period.

Late Stages of Process - Sponsored Internship (SI) Students: The "SI" program is comparable in scope to the IPP internship program, but is primarily designed for incoming graduate students in their first year in their MPA or MPP program. SI interns still contribute 585 hours of support their internship host, averaging 15 hours per week, but have a different set of compensation/benefits. Incoming students are not eligible to apply until "Round 2" of our application procedures, and permission to apply is only granted if enough internship positions are available. Given these incoming students have less graduate coursework training, the SI host fee is $16,500.