Williams-Mystic Climate Fellowship

The funded summer experience is designed to extend and deepen learning from the Williams-Mystic semester, allowing students to translate interdisciplinary study into meaningful, real-world climate engagement.

Students typically use the time during their Williams-Mystic semester to begin identifying their summer internship. With funding secured, students can pursue ideal opportunities with confidence, including those that may be unpaid or underfunded.

Students may combine fellowship funding with paid summer opportunities. Any earnings from the position will be counted toward the fellowship award, with total summer support capped at $7,000. For example, if a student earns $3,000 from an internship, the fellowship may provide up to $4,000 in additional support, for a total of $7,000.

 Summer experiences supported by the fellowship:

• Are full-time (approximately 40 hours per week) for a minimum of eight weeks

• Take the form of an internship or research opportunity connected to climate and community challenges

• May be in-person, hybrid, or remote

• Offer substantial learning opportunities and meaningful professional exploration

• Are well supervised by a professional with relevant expertise, with regular guidance and mentorship

• Take place within an established organization, department, or research group

The fellowship does not support summer experiences that:

• Are primarily academic or theoretical, rather than experiential

• Are supervised by a family member or take place within a family-owned organization

• Are split across multiple unrelated placements

• Lack clear structure, supervision, or educational purpose
  
  

All summer experiences must be reviewed and approved by a committee of Williams-Mystic faculty and staff to ensure alignment with the fellowship’s goals. 

Students are responsible for securing their own housing for internships.Williams-Mystic does not provide additional funding for housing assistance. 

The Climate Fellowship is considered a non-qualifying scholarship and students are responsible for reporting it in their tax filing. International students will receive a 1042s tax form from Williams College, and are encouraged to use their home campus’ tax resources as needed.

Culminating Reflection

The fellowship concludes with a final reflective component, allowing students to integrate their Williams-Mystic academic work with their summer experience. This may take the form of a written reflection, report, or presentation, depending on the nature of the summer work.

At the conclusion of the summer experience, fellows will share a brief verification form with their supervisor. This form confirms that the internship has been completed and asks supervisors to verify total hours worked, with the option to offer brief feedback on the experience.

All end-of-internship materials must be submitted to Williams-Mystic within thirty days of the internship’s completion. 

No, Williams-Mystic has enrolled students from more than 70 colleges and universities across the United States and internationally since 1977. Students from all accredited colleges and universities may apply for both Williams-Mystic and the Williams-Mystic Climate Fellowship. You can learn all about the Williams-Mystic Coastal & Ocean Studies semester here. 

Williams-Mystic approaches climate change as both an environmental and human challenge, with emphasis on climate resilience, sustainability, environmental justice and equity, policy and governance and the cultural, historical, and ethical dimensions of climate change.

Williams-Mystic approaches climate change as both an environmental and human challenge. Using a coastal and ocean studies curriculum as a lens, students examine how climate impacts communities, economies, ecosystems, and policy decisions, with attention to equity, resilience, and how potential solutions must account for all of these factors.

The fellowship helps students connect interdisciplinary academic study with real-world climate work. It pairs a Williams-Mystic semester with up to $7,000 in summer funding, allowing students to pursue meaningful, full-time climate-related work without financial barriers.

Students from all academic backgrounds and majors participate in Williams-Mystic, including the arts, humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields. Williams-Mystic is intentionally interdisciplinary, and the fellowship is designed to support many ways of engaging with climate issues. Whether you are interested in global health, languages, government, academia, law, science, medicine, finance, research or the arts, your experience as a Climate Fellow will help you make connections that align with your future goals—even if they evolve and change over time.

Majors in these fields are part of shaping how society understands and responds to climate change:

Storytelling, Content Creation & Communication 

Majors can include English, Writing, Journalism, Communications, Media Studies, Film, Digital Media

Students in these majors play a critical role in shaping how climate issues are understood and acted on. They might produce short documentaries, manage public-facing communications for a climate nonprofit, develop storytelling campaigns that translate research into accessible language, or collect and share community stories that elevate local voices and experiences.

Ethics, Philosophy, Policy & Law 

Majors can include Philosophy, Political Science, Public Policy, Environmental Studies, Economics and Legal Studies

Students in these fields help grapple with the complex decisions behind climate action, resilient futures and justice. Who decides? Internship work might include researching environmental policy, supporting advocacy or legal organizations, analyzing the equity impacts of climate legislation, or contributing to policy briefs that inform decision-makers at the local or regional level.

Arts        

Majors can include Studio Art, Visual Arts, Graphic Design, Architecture and Art History)

Students in the arts can help make the challenges of climate change and injustice both visible and tangible. They might collaborate with community organizations to create public murals about air quality issues; design visual tools that help residents understand environmental risks; or develop exhibitions that invite dialogue around climate and place.

History 

Majors can include American Studies, Africana Studies, Asian Studies and Indigenous Studies

Students in history-focused majors help ground climate responses in lived experience and historical context. Internship projects might include conducting oral histories, researching how past land-use or industrial decisions shape present-day vulnerabilities, or documenting community stories to inform more just and inclusive climate planning.

A pre-med student is actually an excellent fit for Williams-Mystic and the Climate Fellows program: we regularly enroll pre-med students. 

Health care in the coming years will be directly and relentlessly shaped by climate change. Heat-related illness, respiratory disease, vector-borne infections, food insecurity, and displacement will all show up in exam rooms and community clinics. Physicians who understand the social and environmental drivers behind those trends will be far better prepared to serve their patients.

Your candidacy as a medical school applicant may well be strengthened by your experience as a Climate Fellow, both for the way it demonstrates a commitment to health equity and for showing that you understand the social and environmental determinants of health. Medical schools increasingly want future physicians who can think beyond the individual patient and see the systems affecting people’s well-being.

And the communities most affected by climate change are often the same ones facing barriers to care. Being a Williams-Mystic Climate Fellow shows you’re paying attention to those intersections, and ready to engage with complex, real-world problems rather than just study them.

Williams-Mystic Climate Fellow internship experiences for a pre-med student can be tailored to exactly the kind of preparation you need, from research to clinical work. One student might join a clinical study on asthma rates near industrial sites. Another might analyze climate-driven disease trends like Lyme, run lead-screening clinics in older housing, or help develop public-health strategies to protect vulnerable communities from extreme heat.

With guidance from your pre-health advisor, you’ll identify research, clinical, public health, or environmental health placements that both strengthen your medical school candidacy and give you meaningful hands-on experience with the health impacts of climate and environmental change.

No. Many students identify their summer opportunities during or after their Williams-Mystic semester, often shaped by WM coursework, research projects and advising. The primary resource for internship discovery will be the career and advising center on their home campus, enhanced by the connections made through the WM alumni network.

The fellowship provides funding, but students are responsible for identifying and securing an appropriate summer internship or opportunity. Most do so with guidance from their home college career and advising staff, as well as from Williams-Mystic faculty and alumni. 

Yes, prior to the disbursement of funds, students will submit a form to Williams-Mystic for approval and verification, documenting the terms of their summer experience with a signature from their internship supervisor.

Students may combine fellowship funding with paid opportunities. Any earnings from the position will be counted toward the fellowship award, with total summer support capped at $7,000. (For example, if a student earns $3,000 from an internship, the fellowship may provide up to $4,000 in additional support, for a total of $7,000.)

Yes, Climate Fellows may petition to fulfill their internship or research experience during a shorter term. The funding will be prorated accordingly.