Skip to main content

Advanced Field Study

 What is Advanced Field Study?

 

Our highly competitive AFS program provides students with an in-depth, three-quarter-long Field Study experience, primarily focused on addressing issues and challenges in the community through civic engagement. This highly competitive and selective program allows our most ambitious students to participate in an extended internship with an organization for 8 hours/week for all three academic quarters (October 2025 – June 2026). 

 

Fieldwork activities may include serving in a day-to-day capacity in support of agency operations, conducting research that enhances the work of the organization, developing new activities or programs, working intensively with clients, engaging in outreach and community organization, participating in organizational development and advancement efforts, and more. Unique to the AFS program, our AFS students also work with their supervisors to develop and complete a final project that utilizes the students' skills and interests to support an area of need for their agency. At the end of Spring Quarter, our students present their final projects at UCI to an invited audience of their peers, staff, faculty, and their placement supervisors.  

  

How are students matched with placements?  

  

We have a different placement application process for our AFS students than we do for our quarterly traditional field study students. Because AFS is such a competitive program (only 25 students are selected to complete AFS each year), we first recruit the AFS student cohort through a lengthy internal application process during Spring quarter, and then open up a special placement application season for this cohort during summer where those students apply to a list of AFS-eligible placements in our Field Study catalog. The application season kicks off with an online AFS internship fair for just our AFS-eligible partners and AFS students, followed by a month-long application process where students apply to any AFS-eligible placements of their choice. 

How do I become eligible to receive AFS student applications? 

If you, our partner, are already listed as AFS-eligible in our catalog (there is an AFS icon at the top of your listing) and wish to remain so, then no action is required on your part. If, however, you are NOT currently listed and would like to be, OR you are currently listed but would like to be removed from AFS eligibility in our catalog, please complete this very brief form by March 24th

 

This form will also allow you to share any additional placement details with us specific to AFS students ONLY, and we will add these details to your existing Field Study catalog listing. This way, once our AFS students are accepted into the program, they can apply to AFS placements through the same catalog as our traditional Field Study students. Each listing in our catalog will now indicate whether an organization is open to receiving AFS applications, and what additional duties or requirements that organization has for prospective AFS interns.  

  

AFS community partners will:   

  • Provide in-person, remote, or hybrid fieldwork for the students through three academic terms (Fall, Winter, Spring)
  • Actively engage in the selection process, including an online AFS internship fair and online program orientation.  
  • Increase their capacity to serve local communities by offering meaningful and challenging college-level work.  
  • Mentor undergraduate students on a longer-term basis.  
  • Collaborate with the student to develop clear plans for activities that will benefit the agency and within the AFS course guidelines.   
  • Provide weekly supervision and time for students to work on their projects as well as training on day-to-day work for the organization.  
  • Attend student presentations and celebrations in the spring when the students at your agency are presenting.  
  • Complete quarterly student evaluations and feedback for the AFS office.  

  

AFS student interns will:   

  • Gain opportunities for extensive civic and community engagement  
  • Get the opportunity to immerse themselves more deeply in the organization's programming over three quarters and potentially expand their role and responsibilities 
  • Gain greater access to professional networking and mentoring opportunities  
  • Collaborate with their agency to develop activities and/or projects that will benefit both the agency and the student.   
  • Take initiative, and be professional, courteous, and engaging with their community organizations and the clients they serve.

Below is a tentative timeline of AFS recruitment activities throughout Spring and summer terms. Please note that this timeline can be updated any time. Please reach out to Field Study Director, Dmitry Tsukerman (dtsukerm@uci.edu) if you have any questions. Thanks for your partnership and support!