March For Our Lives: Internship and Opportunities for Youth-Led Change

Introduction

March For Our Lives is a youth-led organization dedicated to ending gun violence in America. Recognizing that young people are not just the future but also the present, the organization trains and supports the next generation of leaders, runs bold campaigns that demand accountability, and uses art, protest, and storytelling to shift public consciousness. This article explores the various internship and engagement opportunities available through March For Our Lives and related programs, focusing on how young individuals can contribute to this vital movement and gain valuable experience in advocacy, activism, and public service.

March For Our Lives: A Youth-Led Movement

March For Our Lives is committed to creating a safer future by addressing gun violence through various avenues. The organization emphasizes the importance of staying informed and engaged, particularly when headlines move on quickly. Every person connected to the movement carries a story, with many entering this work through unimaginable loss, classrooms, campus actions, community organizing, or policy advocacy.

A New Era Grounded in Bold Action

March For Our Lives is stepping into a new era grounded in bold action, investing in organizers, storytellers, and advocates shaping both cultural and policy environments. This includes launching the Action Hub, a creative and supportive digital organizing home where young people can become members and take meaningful action while balancing school, work, internships, and family responsibilities.

Internship and Engagement Opportunities

County of San Mateo Internships

The County of San Mateo Internship Program provides opportunities for career development to individuals interested in working in local government and serving the community. Interns receive challenging assignments in their respective departments and gain exposure to working in a government setting. While a few County internships are available year-round, the majority of opportunities are offered during the summer. Summer internship postings are typically released in March/April. These internships offer academic credit and/or transcript notation, depending on the school's requirements.

Stanford University Programs

Stanford University and affiliated organizations offer a plethora of programs for high school students interested in various fields, providing valuable experience and mentorship opportunities.

AI in Medicine Summer Programs

The Stanford Center for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine & Imaging (AIMI) offers summer programs for high school students interested in exploring healthcare's future. These programs include:

Summer Research Internship: A program for ambitious high school students entering 9th-12th grade in the fall who want to apply their technical skills to real-world clinical problems. Participants dive into AI's impact on healthcare through expert-led sessions, a hands-on project, and mentorship from Stanford researchers.
Summer Bootcamp Program: A free virtual bootcamp designed for high school learners of all technical levels, offering a curated curriculum that covers the fundamentals of machine learning in healthcare settings. Participants discover the intersections through a series of virtual lectures led by Stanford’s leading health AI experts.

Cardiothoracic Surgical Skills Summer Internship

This two-week course is designed to educate high school students considering careers in science and medicine in cardiothoracic surgical anatomy and physiology. The intensive course provides knowledge of and exposure to basic and advanced cardiothoracic surgery and technical skills, such as knot tying, tissue handling, suturing, and coronary artery bypass and valve replacement surgery. Lectures and skills sessions are conducted by Stanford University faculty and surgical residents. Financial assistance is available for applicants in need.

Clinical Anatomy Summer Program (CASP)

The Clinical Anatomy Summer Program (CASP) offers high school students the unique opportunity to explore anatomy and health careers in a week-long, non-residential, in-person program. Summer program students engage with virtual modalities of learning anatomy, hands-on suturing and dissection workshops, and the opportunity to interact with human cadaveric specimens.

Genomics Research Internship Program at Stanford (GRIPS)

The Genomics Research Internship Program at Stanford (GRIPS) brings summer internship opportunities in computational genetics and genomics to Bay Area high school students. GRIPS offers highly talented high school students a unique research experience, professional development, and community-building opportunities. The program is a twenty-hour, eight-week-long research-intensive experience for high school students, placing participants in a research laboratory for the summer to conduct genomics research under the supervision of a lab mentor.

Health Career Collaborative (HCC)

The Health Career Collaborative is a student-driven health career exposure & mentorship program that connects 10th, 11th, and 12th-grade students from East Palo Alto Academy to undergrads, medical and graduate students, and faculty at Stanford. The HCC's goal is to expose students from disadvantaged and/or underrepresented backgrounds to the exciting field of healthcare in aims of making the future workforce of medicine more representative, and its delivery more equitable.

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Inspiring Future Scientists through Shadowing (IFSS)

IFSS is a two-week program hosted each summer by the chemistry department to give rising juniors and seniors in high school an opportunity to experience cutting-edge chemical research while shadowing a graduate student mentor as they work in the laboratory.

Pre-College Opportunities within Energy Research (POWER)

POWER is a Stanford Energy Club program that offers hands-on workshops to introduce local high school students from historically marginalized communities to topics in sustainability and energy research. The program is motivated by the goal of diversifying the pipeline of future energy leaders.

Science Accelerating Girls' Engagement (SAGE)

SAGE (Science Accelerating Girls' Engagement) is a one-week summer camp for public high school students (age 14-17) hosted by scientists and engineers to share what life is like in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) professions. This program aims to foster innovation, grow the STEM community, and engage intelligent, creative, and passionate young women in the everyday life of scientists and engineers. Throughout the week, students participate in job shadowing, hands-on projects, professional development, networking activities, and more!

Science, Technology, and Reconstructive Surgery (STaRS) Summer Internship Program

Each year, the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery hosts 15-30 talented high school and undergraduate students in their research laboratories. STARS interns spend 7 weeks mastering basic lab techniques, participating in research projects, and presenting their work all under the mentorship of experienced researchers.

Seeds of Change

Seeds of Change partners Stanford undergraduates in technology disciplines with high school students interested in advancing the participation of women and girls in STEM and provides an integrated curriculum of mentoring, training, and skills development. The program’s goal is to establish and retain young women in technology fields and create future women STEM leaders.

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SIMR - Stanford Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program

SIMR is for high school juniors and seniors interested in hands-on research in immunology, stem cell, cancer, neuroscience, bioinformatics, or cardiovascular medicine. This eight-week program enables students to take part in research, attend introductory lectures, and present their work at a poster session open to the Stanford community. Interns earn a stipend.

SLAC Summer Internship Program

Participants in this program include high school (ages 18 and older), undergraduate, and graduate-level college students. The internship programs are designed to provide students with stimulating, real-world work experiences. Interns can work for up to twelve weeks from May until September, depending upon department needs and student school schedules.

Stanford AI4ALL

Stanford AI4ALL aims to increase diversity in the field of Artificial Intelligence. During this three-week online program, students are immersed in AI through a combination of lectures, hands-on research projects, and mentoring activities. Participants engage with professionals in the field to learn about cutting-edge ideas, such as how AI can be applied in medicine, disaster response, and combatting poverty. The program also aims to build a close-knit community and encourage interest among underrepresented populations in the field.

Stanford CARE Explorers: AI x Asian Health

The Stanford CARE Explorers program is a dynamic two-week in-person summer experience designed for high school students passionate about improving health outcomes in Asian and Asian American communities and beyond. Participants will explore critical health topics that impact Asian populations, examine how AI tools can improve their understanding of precision health data, learn the fundamentals of statistical data analysis, and develop essential leadership and teamwork skills.

Stanford Clinical Science, Technology, and Medicine Summer Internships

This program is designed for high school (rising juniors and seniors) and pre-medical undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers in medicine, STEM, medical research and development, or healthcare design, with a specific focus on Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine.

Stanford Clinical Summer Internship

The Stanford Clinical Summer Internship brings together curious learners from differing backgrounds to actively engage in the exploration of the art and science behind world-class medicine. Participants discover, contribute, and make meaningful connections and friendships while working alongside dedicated and dynamic Stanford medical students, residents, and faculty, who are all eager to share the joy they have found in medicine.

Other Opportunities

Brain Day

"Brain Day" is an annual event in which volunteers from the Neuroscience program take real human brains to middle school classrooms across Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, and Menlo Park. It leads hour-long, hands-on demonstrations in which kids get the chance to see and hold human and animal brains, often for the first time.

Camp Cardinal

Camp Cardinal offers innovative programming and daily activities with an experienced team of counselors.

Cantor Arts Center

The Cantor Arts Center offers tours and special classes for children, teens, and families throughout the year.

Cardinal Kids Club

Children under 14 can join the Cardinal Kids Club to receive free general admission to many Stanford athletic events; notices of clinics conducted by Cardinal teams; and a free t-shirt and membership card.

Campus Walking Tours

The Stanford Visitor Center offers a range of no-cost tours, exploring the highlights of Stanford’s beautiful campus.

ESP (Educational Studies Program) and SPLASH

ESP and Splash! offer a Saturday or Sunday on campus full of academic and non-academic classes taught by Stanford students. Classes range from cookie baking and origami to machine theory or quantum mechanics. Splash! offers need-based financial aid.

Future Advancers of Science and Technology (FAST)

FAST is a program in which Stanford University graduate students mentor Future Advancers of Science and Technology (FAST) toward achieving their goals of answering open questions in science and engineering clever solutions to problems in their society. High school sophomores, juniors, and seniors of Andrew P Hill High School and James Lick High School meet with Stanford PhD students during afternoons of two Saturdays each month. The goal is to brainstorm projects and carry out experiments / build prototypes between September and February. In late January through March, high school students present their work at local science fairs, state science fairs, and at a Symposium at Stanford University. FAST also offers a series of online workshops to help high school students navigate the college process.

High School Chemistry Outreach

Beginning in 2009, the Stanford Chemistry department teamed up with American High School in Fremont to bring in novel hands-on guided inquiry lab experiences. In these labs, students work together in small groups to carry out an exciting activity that would otherwise not be possible with the minimal equipment and supplies available to most high schools. The lab topics fit within the California Curriculum Standards, presented with an emphasis on how these concepts apply in the real world.

Imagination and Medicine: Graphic Medicine, Comics, and Science Fiction

Imagination and Medicine: Graphic Medicine, Comics, and Science Fiction is a two-week course that explores how speculative storytelling and visual narratives shape the ways we understand the human body, illness, technology, and care. Using graphic novels, comics, classic and contemporary science fiction, pop culture, and emerging medical research, students examine medicine past, present, and future while sharpening critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Students will apply these ideas by creating an original short medical comic, storyboard, or speculative scenario that imagines new futures for medicine and healing. (Ages 13-18)

Introduction to Logic High School Summer Camp

The Introduction to Logic High School Summer Session is a two-week, non-residential program offering an introduction to logic from a computational perspective.

Pre-Collegiate University-Level Online Math & Physics Courses

These online courses are designed for motivated and academically advanced high school students to explore their intellectual passions, develop analytic reasoning and creative thinking, and study directly with expert instructors. Courses are offered for credit throughout the summer and academic year and give students the opportunity to take a broad offering of math and physics courses not typically offered in secondary schools.

Real Stories, Real Impact

One example of the impact of these experiences is a student named Tager, who is also an organizer for March For Our Lives New York. He’s been involved with the organization for four years, the last two of which as a state board member and co-leads of the New York State chapter, oversaw New York City operations. Tager says,"This was all thanks to the help of Josh Rothstein." Hamilton had a huge role in helping Tager prepare for these experiences. Previously, he had dozens of informational interviews with alumni who have worked on Capitol Hill, in nonprofit spaces, and in advocacy. Tager wants to focus on healthcare inequality and the intersection of policy and advocacy work. His work with March For Our Lives has also reminded Tager to have faith in himself and those around him.

Tager assisted chefs on the nutrition team prepare comments when going to conferences and helped moderate discussions between the PCRM’s leadership and members over Zoom. In his role with Caraveo, Tager was offered a beginner internship helping with social media and worked his way up to lead communication fellow. He planned social media posts, strategized ways to increase engagement with constituents, and proposed op-eds and letters.

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