Eligibility: Chicago Field Studies - Northwestern University

Eligibility

Active undergraduate students enrolled in any Northwestern school (Note: First-year students are only eligible to apply to CFS for the Summer Quarter before their Second-Year. They cannot enroll in CFS courses as first-years)
International and exchange students
School of Professional Studies students who are using their own job or who have secured their own internship
Graduate students, through our partnership with the Northwestern Center for Civic Engagement. See their website for more information

You take a Medical Leave of Absence (MLOA) during the quarter(s) immediately prior to your term in CFS
You are on leave from Northwestern
You have graduated
Additionally, various colleges within Northwestern have CFS eligibility rules for their respective students. Please review below and consult your school

Attend an information session within the last 6 months
Be ready to dedicate the time and effort required for a successful internship search, or be ready to provide details about an internship that you secured on your own
Be eager to participate in one of our small (12-16 person) seminar courses once a week and be ready to fulfill course assignments (as in any other course)
Have time to commit to your academic, internship, and extracurricular activities.
Discuss plans with your academic advisor, family, or anyone else who helps you chart your academic path.
Understand how many internship-related course credits can count toward your degree. WCAS allows 6. If you are not a WCAS student, check with your school advisor.
If your GPA is 2.99 or below, be prepared to provide a letter of recommendation from a faculty member or advisor familiar with your work

Check with the Office of International Student Scholar Services (OISS) to see if you are eligible for CFS
Review the CPT requirements from OISS. Note that your internship must be an integral part of your major program of study (as listed on your I-20 as Major 1 or Major 2)
Once you have secured an internship, aapply to the OISS Portal requesting legal work authorization. (You do not need to do this before applying to CFS unless you are applying to CFS with an internship secured)
After applying to the OISS Portal, allow 3-5 days to receive your work authorization and give a copy of your I-20 to the US-based employer.

McCormick Engineering students who are also registering for an internship or co-op with Engineering Career Development may not use the same internship. (Contact your McCormick advisor with questions)
Medill students may earn a maximum of four units through internship course credit, but they cannot count both Journalism Residency (JR) and CFS towards their degree. Therefore, if you have already completed JR and you want to do CFS, CFS credits would be superfluous to your degree requirements. If you have not completed JR and hope to, you cannot do CFS
SESP students may not use CFS credits to fulfill their Practicum requirement. SESP does allow students to count CFS towards Foundational Discipline requirements, where the seminar is approved by WCAS. Additional units of CFS will count towards electives.
School of Communications will only count four units of CFS or internship credit toward your Northwestern degree. Weinberg students can have up to six units of academic credit for CFS or internship-bearing courses
Consult with your academic or faculty advising team for your specific situation and questions about how credits will count toward your degree progress.

Be prepared to fulfill the CFS Information Session requirement. (See modality options on the Information Sessions page)
Be available to CFS and employers by e-mail and by Zoom or phone while you are abroad

If you have any other questions concerning your eligibility, please contact us at cfs@northwestern.edu or 847-467-0605