Yosemite National Park, Tuolumne Meadows Interpretive Internship, Summer 2025
Every summer, The Bill Lane Center for the American West offers many opportunities for Stanford undergraduates (including graduating seniors and co-terms) to work with organizations throughout the West. Through these internships, students can explore careers in natural history, conservation, land use, museum curation, resource management, energy and more.
All internships are full-time for nine to ten weeks during the summer. They are fully funded by the Lane Center with stipends ranging from $7,500 to $10,000.
The Lane Center has placed hundreds of interns in positions across the West since 2005. It has developed strong relationships with host organizations and works hard to ensure interns have successful and enriching experiences.
For more information about the internship program, please visit the FAQs page, or email Education Manager Corinne Thomas.
Details about previous summer student interns and their placements can be found here.
Student reflections about the internship experience can be found by visiting the Out West student blog and the Lane Center Instagram channel.
Stipend Information:
The Bill Lane Center will provide a base stipend of $7,500 with additional funding for student financial aid and location, if applicable, up to $10,000. The stipend is provided to cover living expenses and, if applicable, part of the summer earnings expectation of the Office of Financial Aid.
The stipend is not intended to be, and is not, a paid, hourly wage. An internship is an educational and experiential learning opportunity intended for the student to apply their academics and gain real-world experience.
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a federal background investigation prior to beginning work with the National Park Service. International students are not eligible; Interns must be U.S. citizens.
Description of the Organization:
The National Park Service Organic Act is a federal law that established the National Park Service (NPS) in 1916. The act's mission is to conserve the scenery, wildlife, and natural and historic objects of the parks, and to provide for their enjoyment in a way that leaves them unimpaired for future generations.
This internship will be in-person at Yosemite National Park, Tuolumne Meadows, one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada at 8,600 feet, with the Tuolumne River meandering quietly through its meadow channel against a backdrop of rugged mountain peaks and glacially carved domes.
Tuolumne Meadows embodies the high-country of the Sierra Nevada, with its broad sub-alpine meadows and granite domes and peaks. The Tuolumne River, Lyell Fork, and Dana Fork flow through the vast, colorful meadows bursting with seasonal wildflowers. The meadows are surrounded by stands of western white pine, mountain hemlock, and lodgepole pine.
Tuolumne Meadows is accessible due to the park roadway that crosses the southern edge of the meadow. From this point all the way to the south of Mt. Whitney, no other roads cross the High Sierra. Thus, this roadway marks the northern end of the largest contiguous roadless wilderness in the continental United States.
Within Tuolumne Meadows, visitors see the Tuolumne River meandering quietly through its meadow channel and cascading over the granite river bottom against a backdrop of rugged mountain peaks and glacially carved domes. The river, declared by Congress a Wild and Scenic River in 1984, originates in the high country near the east side of the park.
What is the source of Tuolumne Meadows groundwater and where does it go? Water sources include two forks deep in Yosemite's wilderness—the Dana and the Lyell—and include three creeks—Budd, Delaney and Unicorn. The Tuolumne River runs through the middle of the meadows, for three miles, and is supplied by snowmelt and hill-slope aquifers. In spring as soon as the snow melts, it is not uncommon to see large areas of the meadows flooded and practically transformed into a lake. Most of the water that filters through Tuolumne Meadows eventually becomes the drinking water for San Francisco, via the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. That water is so clean, that it is one of the few urban reservoirs in the United States to require only minimal water treatment.
Internship Overview:
The intern will work alongside the park ranger naturalist staff at the visitor center desk offering answers to questions, guidance and trip planning for visitors to Yosemite National Park. Other duties will include roving popular trails and taking with visitors on trails, helping with projects like setting up for programs at Parsons Memorial Lodge, helping write up descriptive summaries of Parsons programs, creating a "pop-up" program to be offered to visitors and developing and offering a 15-minute interpretive talk about Tuolumne Meadows for visitors. The intern will have training and coaching throughout the season.
The intern will be an integral part of the Park Ranger Naturalist team, living and working in community and doing work that enables the programs to reach visitors to the park. The team consists of the supervisor, park ranger staff of 7 rangers, and other volunteers (2-4).
Internship Work Environment:
This is an in-person internship with 50% field work and 50% indoor/office work.
A Typical day will look like this sometimes:
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Work a visitor center shift, from 8-12pm. This VC shift may include a 15-minute talk for visitors in front of the building.
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Then an hour lunch break followed by a 2-3 hour rove, which might include offering a "pop-up" program at Parsons Lodge.
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Especially early in the season, the intern will have daily training and time for prepping/researching programs.
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There will also be "project" time where various projects will be done as a team.
Housing is provided in very rustic and simple accommodations -- at no charge -- so as to immerse the intern in the place and allow for direct experience and inspiration.
Transportation: It would be *very* helpful for the intern to have a car. It is 30 minutes to the nearest grocery store and 30 to 50 minutes from the nearest towns.
- Prepare a "Pop-up" program complete with visuals and audience centered activity (there will be much training on this!)
- Research and develop a 15-minute, themed, interpretive, talk on a relevant topic, to be offered to visitors. This is a daily program that will be well-practiced by the end of the season.
- Work at the visitor center desk helping visitors with questions and planning.
- Attend Parsons Memorial Lodge programs and writing summaries of each one (possibly 6-8 essays)
- Train – this will include formal training on interpretive techniques and topics and will also include attending and observing ranger programs, and being coached.
Bill Lane Center internships are part of Cardinal Quarter opportunities and students from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. The opportunities are full-time (40 hours a week) for 9-10 consecutive weeks during the summer.
Specific start and end dates during the summer can be coordinated directly with the supervisor.
All undergraduates of any year, including graduating seniors, are eligible. Graduating seniors are eligible only if they are graduating in spring quarter. Students who have already graduated, e.g., fall or winter quarter of this academic year are not eligible.
For more application advice, please visit the BLC’s FAQs page.
Please note:
- Students are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise) during this full-time, summer internship.
- Student athletes should confirm the impact of any awarded stipend on their athletic eligibility by contacting the Compliance Services Office prior to committing to an internship.
- New Stipend Policy per the U.S. Department of Education: A stipend is considered a resource and it may have an impact on a student’s financial aid. To comply with US Department of Education regulations, student payments, awards, prizes, and gifts that are made available to the student because they are a Stanford student, must be reported to the Financial Aid Office. The Financial Aid Office is responsible for the disbursement of stipend funds to undergraduates. For more information, please visit the Financial Aid Office's webpage about the student stipend policy.
Application Guidelines for this Internship:
PLEASE NOTE: The selected individual will be required to undergo a federal background investigation prior to beginning work with the National Park Service. This is a standard background check for federal employees, interns, and volunteers who will not have access to classified information.
Rising juniors, seniors or co-terms preferred but it is open to anyone with the right skills and openness to learn.
Required Skills:
- Excellent communication skills
- Ability to work independently
- Willingness to help as needed and work as a team member
- Desire to learn to give high quality interpretive programs
- Open to coaching
- A passion for natural and cultural history
- Open to community living and working
- The successful intern will also be required to complete a background investigation in order to have access to the program’s government-networked computers
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First aid certification and a drivers license are also required
Desired Skills:
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Knowledge of the park and local area helpful but not mandatory
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Have at least 2 years of college education
Selection of applicants:
Complete applications are screened and finalists are contacted for a first-round interview with staff from the Bill Lane Center for the American West.
The top candidates for the position are then forwarded to the organization for second-round interviews with their potential supervisor and other staff.
Host organizations will then notify the Lane Center of their preferred candidate and that applicant will receive an internship offer from the Bill Lane Center by email.
The applicant is expected to respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to the offer or the offer will be rescinded.
Once an applicant accepts an offer, they are required to promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and withdraw their candidacy from those other opportunities.
