Opportunities for Underclassmen

As Kids & Chemistry volunteers, college students teach elementary and middle school students important science concepts while showing them that science is cool, interesting, and something that they can do. Kids & Chemistry provides its volunteers with free presentation tips and hands-on activity ideas.

The mission of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) is to inspire a community of future physicians through education and advocacy. Woven throughout its experiential learning curriculum, AMSA champions leadership development, advocacy training, skill-building workshops, and career counseling and development. Leaders interested in medicine are welcome participants within the AMSA community. The following are a number of experiential learning opportunities: AMSA Academy, Empowering Future Physicians Conference, 2013 AMSA Annual Convention

Breakthrough Collaborative offers more than 750 high school and college students the opportunity to experience the challenges, exhilaration, and realities of the classroom while planning and teaching their own academic courses to small groups of motivated middle school students from underserved areas. Repeatedly named a Princeton Review Top Ten Internship, Breakthrough Collaborative teacher positions are available in 25 U.S. cities and Hong Kong.

Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools Program trains college students to become servant leader interns to provide front-line care and nurturing for children. Using the integrated reading curriculum, interns serve as facilitators in the classroom and as leaders of parent workshops and community outreach activities. Interns are also are welcomed into the CDF's Youth Leadership Network for Children, which provides access to further leadership development activities, legislative updates, and networking opportunities geared toward continued direct service and advocacy on behalf of children.

Congressional Internship Program (CIP) is to expose young Latinos to the legislative process and to strengthen their professional and leadership skills, ultimately promoting the presence of Latinos on Capitol Hill. Students gain work experience, participate in a community service project, and receive educational and professional programming provided by CHCI. These paid 12-week internships are offered in the spring, summer, and fall.

Global China Connection (GCC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to international relationships through student-produced events and media that focus on China. Funded by private and corporate donors, GCC leads over 60 international university chapters to meaningfully engage their counterparts in China. Join your chapter or help bring a chapter to your school!

Collegiate Challenge is a year-round alternative break program that offers groups of five or more students the opportunity to visit one of the 250 Habitat host affiliates throughout the United States. Students spend one week working in partnership with the local Habitat organization, community, and partner families to increase the availability of simple, decent, and affordable housing in the area.

The Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative and the Peer-Network Engagement Internship provide students with the resources to dramatically enhance life on campus through a grassroots community organizing approach. During a year-long internship, interns build authentic and genuine relationships with their peers, striving to understand each student’s interests, passions, and aspirations and connecting them to opportunities that are meaningful and engaging. Campus Entrepreneurs and Peer-Network Interns receive ongoing training, professional development, and mentorship throughout their internship.

The LOFT (Latinos on Fast Track) career development and job placement program was created to systematically identify, prepare, place, mentor, and retain emerging Latino professionals on a management track in major industries to bolster America’s workforce. LOFT programs include internships, full time positions, community service projects, mentorship matching, and networking events, among others. LOFT has provided hundreds of candidates to Fortune 500 companies in the fields of business, finance, engineering, healthcare, research, technology, retail, marketing, journalism, and entertainment.

Idealist.org is an international organization that aims to help individuals act on their good intentions, through volunteering, community engagement, national and international service, social-impact careers, and further education. Any interested student can sign up to search for organizations and opportunities and learn more about service opportunities like Teach For America.

Interfaith Youth Core is equipping a movement of young people with the knowledge base and skillset to transform mere religious diversity into religious pluralism. These leaders confront negative stereotypes and build stronger communities through cooperative service on their college and university campuses. IFYC offers a year-long campus fellowship called the Fellows Alliance, as well as year-round internships for emerging interfaith leaders.

Jumpstart recruits and trains motivated college students to work one-on-one with preschool children for a full school year. Corps members partner with children from low-income backgrounds to help them build skills crucial to school success. Responsibilities include participating in weekly Jumpstart sessions and team planning meetings, serving in a preschool classroom during the regular school day, engaging in ongoing training, and communicating and strategizing with partner families. Jumpstart works with 3,500 college students on 62 campuses nationwide.

Let’s Get Ready expands access to higher education in America by mobilizing, equipping, and empowering a movement of college students to help high school students get to college. Let’s Get Ready site directors (who each receive a stipend) and volunteers provide underserved students with the intensive SAT preparation, college advisement, and powerfully relevant role-models and mentors they need to succeed. Visit the Let’s Get Ready website for a complete listing of sites and program dates.

MLT is a national non-profit whose goal is to diversify senior business, entrepreneurial, and non-profit leadership. Black, Latino, and Native American sophomores are encouraged to apply to the Career Prep program. Career Prep uses one-on-one coaching, exclusive exposure to leading companies, national networking with young professionals, and four all-inclusive leadership development workshops to help students realize their full career potential.

Net Impact is a global nonprofit organization with a mission to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. Across 290 chapters, Net Impact members connect, learn, and take action in corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, green business and more. Join an existing chapter on your campus, or start a new one to develop your leadership skills, build a professional network, and make a difference on your campus and in your future career.

Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity is a co-educational organization that mixes the best elements of an honor society, service organization, and social group into a fusion of Scholarship, Leadership, and Fellowship. Phi Sigma Pi offers its members a wide variety of experiences including academic programs, social gatherings and service projects such as initiatives with its national philanthropy, Teach For America. The Fraternity today has over 5,000 undergraduate members and 39,000 alumni members from over 130 campuses. Help bring a chapter to your school, and discover your potential!

The Public Leadership Education Network (PLEN) is the only national organization whose sole focus is preparing college women for public leadership. Each year, PLEN brings women students from colleges and universities across the country to Washington, D.C. for a weekend, week, or an entire summer to experience first-hand how public policy is shaped and implemented at the national level. Students meet with and learn from women leaders making and influencing public policy at the highest levels in the Congress, courts, federal agencies, corporate sector, policy research and advocacy organizations, and the news media.

SEO‘s mission is to prepare young people of color to lead by example in their families, communities, and careers. The SEO Career Program has placed over 5,000 Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American students in competitive business, banking, law, technology, and philanthropic internships. SEO has been featured in Princeton Review’s “The Best 109 Internships” and Vault.com’s “Top 10 U.S. Internships”.

Students for Education Reform (SFER) is a national non-profit that prepares undergraduates to be leaders in education reform. We give our chapter leaders the tools they need to lead awareness, understanding, and engagement activities on their campuses; and we bring student voices together as stakeholders in the education system. 

Students Today Leaders Forever conducts “Pay It Forward” tours with middle school, high school, and college students. The Tour is a community service road trip that travels from city to city doing different service projects. Students on a charter bus will visit cities of various sizes and learn about a variety of social issues, with the hopes of learning more about themselves, their own community, and the world.

Tau Beta Pi offers engineering majors the opportunity to volunteer and help K-12 students through the MindSET Program. MindSET, a math and science intervention program, assists students in making the connection between math and the world around them. This initiative gives chapter members and volunteers the opportunity to increase the number of students that successfully complete high-level math and science courses prior to graduation from high school. Tau Beta Pi provides the resources necessary to create a successful program, including program implementation guidelines and teacher training.

Students Offering Support (SOS) is comprised of chapters in post-secondary schools across Canada and the US. These chapters are led by student volunteers who work to support our objectives of Raising Grades, Raising Money, and Raising Roofs. Each SOS chapter runs group tutoring sessions right before exams for university courses. These ‘Exam-AID’ sessions are taught and coordinated by student volunteers. Each year, the money raised from ‘Exam-AID’ sessions is spent creating sustainable education projects in developing nations on annual outreach trips attended by those same students. SOS is looking for motivated student leaders to fill VP and President positions or start new chapters in the United States. It is a great opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills while making an impact at home and abroad.