Summer GIS Internship Opportunity
Fairfax (VA) County Park Authority - apply by 3/18
We are looking for
a student with good hands-on GIS skills to work with us as one of our interns
this summer.
The Fairfax County
Park Authority’s Park Planning & Development Division, headquartered
in Fairfax, Virginia, 20 miles west of Washington, DC, offers summer
internships in a sincere effort to provide a quality, diversified program in
which students from the urban affairs, environmental and land use planning,
landscape architecture and geography disciplines have the opportunity to apply
traditional academic classroom learning to actual work experience within a
local government planning agency, in order to develop personal and professional
skills for future career development and placement. The Park Planning &
Development Division has hosted up to three student interns each summer for the
past decade and has found it to be a mutually beneficial program.
Park Planning
Intern
Description: The Park
Planning Intern will work with the Park Planning team on projects that support
long range park planning efforts, individual park master plan projects, land
development impact review, GIS mapping projects, and/or AutoCAD design of park
sites. Responsibilities may include attending planning team meetings; assisting
with logistics of planning public outreach meetings; evaluating rezoning
applications and site plans for impacts to parkland; working on park master
plan conceptual designs, updating park data layers and database information in
GIS, making maps, conducting research, writing reports, and making
presentations to staff teams and managers. Actual assigned projects will depend
upon the student’s skills and interests. Depending on the areas of assignment,
there may be an opportunity to interact with staff in other county agencies,
such as Planning & Zoning, Public Works, and Community Revitalization.
Requirements: Coursework
in geography, land use planning, public policy planning and analysis, landscape
architecture, park and recreation planning, and/or natural resource management.
Good research and writing skills, attention to detail. Microsoft Office
computer skills. Some ArcInfo GIS and/or AutoCAD experience is required if the
student seeks to work on GIS and CAD projects.
Schedule: The intern
will be expected to make a commitment to work a minimum of 20 hours per week
for about 12 weeks from mid- to late-May until early- to mid-August (start and
end dates are flexible). The position is unpaid, but the Park Authority will
work with the student on necessary paperwork if seeking course credit and a
written letter of recommendation will be provided at successful completion of the
program. Free temporary housing at one of the Park Authority’s historic
properties may be available to out of state students, but the intern must
provide their own vehicle for transportation to and from the office.
Orientation will be provided to interns during their first few weeks on the job
and a meeting with senior managers and the Park Authority Board will be
scheduled for an evening in July.
To apply: Submit an
application and resume prior to March 18, 2016 via the Park
Authority’s web portal: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/internships/ Selected
applicants will have the option of interviewing in person or via Skype and a
written exercise may be required.