Field experience information
Basics
The purpose of the field experience is to provide you with opportunities for professional mastery and for personal development. As you document your experiences and learning, you contribute to an understanding of the substance of youth development leadership as well as actually changing how the community responds to its youth and manifests its moral compact with them.
Every student must have a faculty-approved field experience lasting at least 180 hours. Since the field experience is an opportunity for you to integrate and develop further leadership in youth development work—and given the program's philosophies of adult experiential education and healthy youth development—each student will design his/her own field experience in consultation with a faculty adviser.
We encourage you to think of your field experience in terms of lived or learned time instead of clock time and credit hours. Ask yourself, "What is required to bring about the learning I want to master?" Design your field experience to accomplish your desired outcomes. If your plan requires vastly more time and learning than you believe is warranted by the field experience, work with your adviser to develop some independent study options to encompass your goals.
Proposal process
It is your job to make the contacts and, with consultation, to negotiate a field experience contract with a public or private community agency, program, group, or practitioner working directly with and/or on behalf of youth. You must have a supervisor/mentor of record employed by that organization or group. You may also select a reflective mentor to serve as a guide and sounding board.
Once you have decided what you want to do, you must write a proposal and present it to the YDL coordinator who may ask other faculty for input. After necessary adjustments are made and your proposal is approved, a copy must be signed by you, your adviser, and the person serving as your field experience supervisor. This process makes your proposal an official contract, which allows you to receive University of Minnesota credit, insurance, etc. Copies of the signed, approved proposal must be filed with your adviser, your supervisor, and the YDL graduate assistant. Remember to register for the field experience – CI 5962.
Proposal checklist
- Decide what you want to do. (It’s OK to have more than one idea.) Be able to justify why your choice is an appropriate field experience for you.
- Make contacts within the community to find a professional to supervise you during your field experience. You may also select a reflective mentor to serve as a guide and sounding board, but you are not required to do so.
- Complete the Field Experience Proposal form [.doc] and submit it to your adviser. Be sure your selected supervisor agrees with and is committed to your plan!
- Have the YDL coordinator review and endorse your field experience proposal.
- Revise your field experience proposal to reflect any changes recommended by faculty. This final copy of your proposal must be signed by you, your adviser, and your field experience supervisor.
- Make copies of your signed proposal. Submit one copy to each of the following: your adviser, your supervisor, and the YDL graduate assistant. This form is filed as an official memorandum of understanding among you, the University of Minnesota, and your supervisor and/or placement site.
- Upon conclusion of your field experience, you must write a reflective analysis to be incorporated in your portfolio presentation.
Revised November 2009
