Summer Experience Fund

Removing Financial Barriers to Career Success

The Owl Edge Summer Experience Fund (OESEF) is a collection of summer funding awards that provide financial support for Rice undergraduate students pursuing unpaid or minimally paid career-related experiences.

The OESEF supports students with living expenses, transportation, and travel so that these essential experiences are available to all of our students who may otherwise not be able to afford them. The selection process is competitive as we receive many high-quality applications for limited funding. We place a high priority on supporting students with financial need. Multiple CCD staff and other staff across the university make up our review committee, which administers and coordinates each award.

Note that this funding should NOT be considered salary or meant as compensation. In addition, awardees of this fund will participate in online career development modules and thank their supporters.

Available Funding Options

The OESEF application connects students to various summer funding opportunities available to all undergraduate students and funding opportunities based on their primary college or other qualifications. See the details below about funding opportunities available to students.

Funding Available to Undergraduate Students

• The Alison Weaver Summer Fund for the Arts: A fund to support students working in the arts.
• The Charles D. Hackney Public Service Internship: A fund to support students working in public service for governmental or non-profit organizations that are apolitical.
• The Darrell M. Whitley Summer Work Abroad Scholarship: a fund to support students pursuing summer work abroad.
• The Irwin M. “Buddy” Herz Community Outreach, Leadership and Engagement Fund: A fund to (in part) support an internship program that will allow Rice students to serve the community in positions beyond the hedges.
• The Klein Family Fellowship
• The Nicholson Family Experiential Learning Endowment
• The Oka and Makihara Internship Opportunities Fund: A fund to support students pursuing summer internships where their financial status is a factor in awarding the support.
• The Owl Edge Summer Experience Fund

Funding Available to Undergraduate Students in the School of Humanities & Arts

• The Joseph E. Kruppa Endowed Internship Award: This award provides summer internship funding to undergraduate students in the Rice School of Humanities, with a preference for students majoring in English. HEDGE applicants are automatically considered for this award.
• The Reginald Moore Internship Award: This award will support a student who pursues work honoring Reginald Moore's legacy of historical scholarship and pursuit of social justice and activism. Reginald Moore founded the Convict Leasing and Labor Project and is a longtime Houston-area activist. HEDGE applicants are automatically considered for this award.
• The Julie and David Itz Research Fund in Humanities: Provides undergraduate research support to School of Humanities majors, including, but not limited to, expenses related to summer internships, with a preference for students engaging in historical research.

Eligibility Criteria

Please review the eligibility criteria below. If you still have questions about your eligibility for this program after reviewing our criteria, then please email summerfund@rice.edu or schedule a drop-in appointment with a career counselor via rice.12twenty.com

Student Eligibility Criteria

Currently enrolled matriculated undergraduate students for the spring semester must be enrolled in a degree-granting program at Rice University and in Good academic standing.

• Students who transfer to another institution in the fall and leave Rice are not eligible for funding and/or may have funding rescinded.
• You are returning to complete at least one full-time semester of coursework toward your bachelor's degree at Rice University following your summer experience.
• Have a written invitation to interview or offer for an unpaid or low-paid* career-related summer experience with at least 240 hours of work time. Typically, experiences are 20+ hours a week. The offer does NOT yet need to be accepted.
• You must report all other funding opportunities you are pursuing or the compensation you expect to receive in the budget portion of your application.

Examples of low-paid experiences include a minimum wage experience, a lunch allowance, a small stipend, or an honorarium. Stipends and any other compensation should be included in the budget portion of the application, which will be deducted from the requested amount and evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If you are awarded funding and find out later that you will receive compensation, the amount will be deducted from the original award. Generally, a low-paid summer experience is one in which your living expenses exceed your income.

NOTE: Late or incomplete applications will NOT be accepted.

Internship Eligibility Criteria

To ensure that an experience, whether it is a traditional internship or one conducted remotely or virtually, is educational, and thus eligible to be considered a legitimate internship by the NACE definition, all the following criteria must be met:

1. The experience must be an extension of the classroom: a learning experience that provides for applying the knowledge gained in the classroom. It must not be simply to advance the operations of the employer or be the work that a regular employee would routinely perform.
2. The skills or knowledge learned must be transferable to other employment settings.
3. The experience has a defined beginning and end, and a job description with desired qualifications.
4. There are clearly defined learning objectives/goals related to the professional goals of the student’s academic coursework.
5. There is supervision by a professional with expertise and educational and/or professional background in the field of the experience.
6. There is routine feedback by the experienced supervisor.
7. There are resources, equipment, and facilities provided by the host employer that support learning objectives/goals.

Eligible Experiences

• A traditional internship supervised by a staff member with clear learning/professional goals
• Research assistantship, supervised by a principal investigator (PI), post-doc, staff, or faculty member who is not affiliated with Rice University

If you believe your experience should qualify, please email summerfund@rice.edu to discuss.

Non-Eligible Experiences Include

• Any Rice University program.
• Fee-based programs - any program that charges tuition or a fee.
• Research that a graduate student supervises. A Principal Investigator or faculty member should supervise research experiences.
• Personal research projects, individual projects, research projects attached to academic credit, or personal entrepreneurial ventures.
• Pipeline or insight programs that are meant to expose a student to a company, but where the student does not produce a work product.
• Student or student-run entrepreneurial ventures.
• Student organization-related projects.
• Summer courses at Rice or any other institution.
• Any experience supervised by another student.
• Work at an organization owned by a personal family member or where a family member directly supervises you. A family member may include, but is not limited to, a parent, sibling, spouse, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or cousin.

Eligible Expenses

• Living expenses (e.g., rent, utilities, food)
• Moving to and from experience location (e.g., bus, plane, or train ticket)
• Daily transportation to experience site (e.g., public transport fare, mileage)
• Equipment and software necessary for the experience
• Supplies required for field work or postion/industry specific needs
• Lab attire or other attire is needed to complete the experience. We will refer students who need professional clothing to our partners at Dress for Success or Career Gear.

Non-Eligible Expenses

• Clothing other than a required uniform
• Insurance (car renters, health)
• Personal travel
• Entertainment
• Gym memberships
• Purchase of a vehicle or personal transportation device
• Tuition

Selection Details

The selection committee will evaluate applications based on financial need, time to graduation, experience level, and overall quality of your application materials. We encourage all students to apply. However, students with financial need will have preference. If you have extenuating circumstances contributing to your need, please note them in your application materials. After the selection committee reviews your budget, they may make edits to the proposed budget, which may alter the requested funding.

Owl Edge Summer Experience Fund Timeline:

The selection committee reviews each application diligently and coordinates details with multiple offices across campus. We may potentially open a second deadline in early summer if funds are still available.

Application Details

Please read through each item carefully. The OESEF application process is competitive, and only complete, high-quality applications for eligible summer experiences are eligible.

InfoReady Application

The CCD is using the InfoReady platform to manage student application materials. InfoReady will capture demographic information, details about the summer experience you plan to participate in, share your estimated budget with detailed notes, and upload your resume and essay.

Financial Aid Information

Our office coordinates with the Office of Financial Aid to determine each applicant's level of need. You will still be considered for the OESEF if you do not receive financial aid.

Budget

The InfoReady application has a budget section where we ask you to provide a detailed breakdown of your budget needs. You may download this example budget document to help develop your budget, but please share your final budget details via the InfoReady application.

1. Expenses
   1. Airfare, travel, and commuting expenses
   2. Housing expenses
   3. Personal expenses
2. Income
   1. Expected stipend, wage, or in-kind support from the organization at your internship site this summer (paycheck, award, per-diem, or housing)
   2. Other awards or in-kind funding provided by Rice University for this summer experience.

Essay

1. The essay should be 600-1000 words. Your essay should answer the following questions
2. Describe your current career or internship goals. How will this experience help you explore a potential career path and shape your future job search?
3. Explain your motivation for pursuing this specific internship. How does it connect your academic studies to your long-term professional goals?
4. Tell us about how you found and secured this internship opportunity.
5. Can you pursue this opportunity during the academic year?
6. Using the NACE Career Readiness Competencies (LINK), provide at least three specific examples of how your internship activities will help you develop these skills.
7. How might the skills and experiences you gain during this internship be applied in the Rice community and/or your own community?
8. Please describe your current financial situation and explain why this funding is essential for you to participate in this opportunity.

Resume

The Center for Career Development recommends all students have their resume reviewed either by a career counselor or peer career advisor or use our online guides before submitting any application but especially to the OESEF. Upload the most recent version of your resume in PDF format. We grade every resume on the following points.

• Length: 1 page
• Formatting: Only one font is used, and consistent formatting (e.g., font, bullet sizes, heading styles, bold and caps), headings and bullets are evenly spaced, dates are aligned, and consistent style of and space between dashes.
• Name/Contact Info: Your name at the tip of the page in an easy-to-read font, and your address, phone number, city & state, email, and Linkedin are easy to read.
• Education/Relevant Coursework/Skills: present first after your contact information, which includes the official degree and anticipated date of graduation, no name of high school (unless freshman), and no course numbers, just names and hard skills, not soft skills.
• Experiences: Clear headings and are in reverse chronological order within each section.
• Bullet Points: Approximately 2-4 statements per position, and does every bullet point include action verbs + core content and variation of verbs.
• Verb Tense: Present tense for current positions and past tense for previous positions.

Confirm your experience

Share your summer experience confirmation with us in PDF or JPEG format. The minimum requirement for this section is evidence that you have received and accepted an invitation to interview for the summer experience. It can be a screenshot of an email or application portal. At a minimum, this is required for your application to be considered. If you only provide evidence of an interview, we will proceed with your application. You do not need to have accepted the internship to be eligible for the OESEF. If you are selected to be awarded, then we will ask for confirmation that you are pursuing the experience you applied for on your application.

InfoReady allows you to amend your application until the final application deadline; please update this portion of your application when you have accepted the summer experience or contact summerfund@rice.edu to update this portion of the application package.

Additional Information

Please explain any other information that may be helpful to the review. Examples include:

• Additional work/volunteer/academic/other experiences you will be involved in this summer.
• Extenuating circumstances
• Additional information about your funding needs
• Additional information you would like us to know when considering your application (i.e. doing a combined 240 hours of work in two different labs or organizations)

To learn more and apply, search "2026 Owl Edge Summer Experience Fund" (starting January 12th, 2026) in 12twenty or on InfoReady.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many times can students receive funding?

A student can receive up to the maximum award of $5,500 during their tenure at Rice University. This can be awarded in a single summer or over multiple summers.

What other resources exist to help students with unpaid internships?

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but one to help students get started. Schedule an appointment with a CCD team member to determine whether an unpaid internship is the best option for you.

https://ccl.rice.edu/students/fellowships/rice-nominated-fellowships/
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~clack/alphalisting.html
http://www.computerscience.org/scholarships/
https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/scholarship-search
https://www.fastweb.com/registration/step_1/
http://www.gocollege.com/
http://www.grants.gov/
https://www.petersons.com/college-search/scholarship-search.aspx
http://www.princetonreview.com/college-advice
http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/

Also, see this document for more information.