How important is volunteering and what opportunities are there for it in the area?
Most professional programs consider volunteering (or work-related exposure to the field of interest) to be an important part of the student’s application. Volunteering opportunities and/or internships can help an applicant demonstrate their interest and committment to their field. More importantly, they allow students gain first hand experience with an area they’re interested in. Students should be aware that some professional schools (such as most Physician’s Assistant programs) actually require a certain number of hours of first-hand patient exposure. Others (such as MD/PhD programs) strongly suggest or require first-hand experience in a laboratory. URI students have a large variety of volunteer and internships opportunities available to them – both on-campus and off. Some of these include working in a research lab, serving as an EMT at the school’s volunteer rescue (chosen as Best Collegiate Ambulence in the country last year!), a sports medicine internship with one of our sports te
