Are you a student at a middle school or high school in Michigan, age 13 or over? Are you interested in story-telling or language, or wondering what university research is like? Become an MI Diaries Youth Intern, and get to know other Youth Interns from across the state! You can join us in fall, spring or summer, and stay for one semester or more. 

What you’ll do 

Youth interns come to our weekly 1-hour online meetings, which are attended by the entire team. We schedule them in the late afternoon so that youth interns can join us after school. We think it’s important that everybody feels connected. For that reason, meetings always start with time for members to share their own news (“I got a new dog!”; “Classes were tough this week”; “Look at what I baked!”). Then you’ll hear updates on the project, and get a chance to contribute feedback. We also break into smaller groups to brainstorm new prompts to send to diarists. These breakout groups are a great opportunity for you to interact more informally with MSU students, professors, and each other. And we really value all the great ideas that youth interns bring to creating prompts for teens!  

Youth interns have also:  

• Helped us to form new partnerships with community organizations 

• Recruited diarists through their school or social network 

• Helped test out and improve our mobile app 

If you have the time and interest, you can also join one of our sub-teams. These are groups of students who work on selecting featured weekly stories, or designing our website and app, or recruiting new diarists, and more.   

How to apply 

Each semester, we accept up to 5 new Youth Interns. To apply, you and a parent or guardian should send an email to Dr. Sneller telling us a little bit about yourself (where you’re from, what grade you’re in, and anything else you’d like to tell us), and why you are interested in becoming a Youth Intern.