Diversity Internship Program

The MMS Pacific Region continually strives to increase diversity in our workforce by providing leadership and career opportunities to qualified ethnically diverse and disabled students through the federal Student Educational Employment Program. The Student Educational Employment Program benefits both agencies and students. Agencies can discover first-hand the abilities of a potential employee. In the case of SCEP, agencies can bring well educated graduates into their workforce while at the same time give their managers the ability to evaluate the student's performance in real work situations. Students, on the other hand, can avail themselves of such flexibilities as year round employment and flexible work schedules and assignments.

The Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) provides maximum flexibility to both students and managers because the nature of the work docs not have to be related to the student's academic or career goals.

The Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) provides work experience that is directly related to the student's academic program and career goals. Students in the SCEP gain exposure to public service while enhancing their educational goals and shaping their career choices. SCEP appointments may be noncompetitively converted to term, career or career-conditional appointments following completion of their academic and work experience requirements when vacancies are available.

The four main objectives of these student employment programs are:

• to merge academic study with practical application for students majoring in relevant fields and related disciplines;

• to create a consort of talented students to explore and understand professional practices through exposure to research and development, technology, administration and the government environment;

• to provide professional experience for ethnically diverse students and students with disabilities that will enable them to make educated and informed career choices; and

• to create a pool of future employees who have had positive, meaningful work experience with the federal government, and who might consider federal service as a serious career choice.

For more information on the Region's student programs, contact Pacific OCS Region Student Program Coordinator.

It is policy in the Department of the Interior that no person in the U.S. shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability or age in any of its federally assisted programs or activities. Additionally, discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation is strictly prohibited in DOI's federally assisted programs; statutory authority language contains specific prohibitions against sex discrimination.