Human Rights Careers Intensive

In this six-session course, we'll come together as a group to learn about human rights careers, meet alumni and other professionals who successfully work in human rights roles, and get job-search ready. Click on the link below to submit your application to the Human Rights Careers Intensive.

Apply here.

This program takes a commitment to be yourself, have fun, and contribute to the group for all 6 weeks. With that commitment comes a whole bunch of good stuff:

Two students talking and gesturing while seated

Clarity

Clarity about your goals: Human rights careers are highly varied. Through this program, you'll begin to clarify the types of roles and organizations within the field that interest you.

Clarity about your value: Through a variety of exercises, you will clarify and articulate your skills and the value you bring to an organization in your future job search.

Two students showing each other the work they've done

Tangible results

Search-ready documents: You'll be able to clearly articulate all your have to offer on your resume and in interviews and walk away ready to hit the ground running in your job search.

A personal network: With a variety of alumni and guests, you'll get to have meaningful conversations with these human rights experts, therefore expanding your own network of connections.

Students engaged in small group discussions in a classroom

Supportive accountability

Committing to anything for 6 weeks takes courage. The benefit of doing so? You carve out dedicated time to hold yourself accountable to reach your goals. You'll also get an accountability partner to keep in touch with between Friday sessions, making sure you both accomplish what you need to get done.

Perspectives from human rights professionals

Each week, we'll hear from a professional who is now working in a human rights role of some kind. They'll share their story, providing you with career advice they learned along the way.

I enjoyed how this program forced me to think about what I want to do in the future with a more strategic framework. I didn't realize how to be strategic with internship applications; I feel like this class introduced me to useful techniques that I will certainly employ in the future.

Careers intensive participant, 2019

The Human Rights Careers Intensive was developed back in 2018 in partnership with Stanford Career Education, who designed the original version of this program. We would like to thank and acknowledge Stanford Career Education for their valuable contribution to our curriculum and class materials.

Week 1: Welcome to the program! Kick-off session.

Let’s meet everyone in this term’s cohort and talk about what we’ll be doing together.

Week 2: What are you good at? What do you care about? What do you enjoy?

You'll evaluate the skills you’ve developed so far in life and how those can help you in the world of work.

Week 3: What does it mean to you to do human rights work? Where do the opportunities lie? How do you break in?

The teaching team will introduce you to the the wide range of sectors in which people do human rights work, thinking comparatively about what it really means in practical terms to work in different fields, sectors, or locations.

Week 4: How do you imagine your possible lives? What do you want your life to be about, and how might you make that happen?

We will devote most of our time this week to imagining, discussing, and reflecting on the future, in order to concretely identify pathways you may want to pursue.

Week 5: How do you move from research to action?

We will lay out specific ways to move from research to action in pursuit of concrete opportunities. We’ll explore which skills and credentials may be needed, discuss how to effectively build and leverage your network, and get a better understanding of the entry points available at different stages in your career.

Week 6: How do you craft the story of why you're a good fit for a job?

Let’s determine how to best represent your strengths and value to help you stand out on paper and during interviews, by workshopping your personal "story of self" and your cover letter. We’ll bring together what you’ve learned about yourself to best explain how you fit with the jobs and careers you want.