Department of Economics
Professional Tracks
Summer internships and research work can be an important part of your education.
Such experiences complement what you are learning in the classroom, providing you with important skills, perspective, and insight to apply to your subsequent work at Brown and beyond. They can help you gain relevant experience and explore whether a particular career would be a good fit for you, especially if you are considering a career in finance, business consulting, or related professions.
While the Economics Department does not give course credit for internships, we officially recognize their importance via the optional Professional Track of each of our concentrations.
In addition to fulfilling other concentration requirements, students on the Professional Track must complete full-time professional experiences doing work that is related to their concentration programs, totalling 2-6 months, whereby each internship must be at least one month in duration in cases where students choose to do more than one internship experience. Such work is normally done at a company, but may also be at a university under the supervision of a faculty member. Internships that take place between the end of the fall and the start of the spring semesters cannot be used to fulfill this requirement.
For the professional-track Curricular Practical Training (CPT) approval process, you should submit a request in the OISSS Gateway portal (brown.edu/go/oisssgateway). You will be asked to provide the name and email address of your concentration advisor, as your advisor will receive a link allowing them to review and approve/deny the request. If approved, OISSS will review and issue the CPT work authorization in the form of a new I-20. Following your internship, the reflective essay should also be uploaded to the OISSS Gateway portal. As with the CPT request, you will need to enter your concentration advisor's name and email, so that they can review and approve the essay.
If ASK tells you that the faculty member who originally approved your concentration declaration is no longer serving as a concentration advisor, please contact Caroline Kells (caroline_kells@brown.edu) to assign you to a new advisor.