Internship Requirements

Students must meet the following requirements to receive credit for their internship:

• Students are required to work 3 hours per week for each academic credit. In other words, a 5-credit internship would require that you work 15 hours per week for the 10 weeks in the quarter in which you are performing your internship.
• Students are limited to a maximum of 10 credits per quarter even though some companies want their student interns to work full time (40 hours per week). In such cases,these companies pay interns for the time spent working for the company. Your work schedule will be negotiated between you and the internship employer. It is best if you can maintain a consistent work schedule from week to week.
• Students must submit a paper to the internship adviser at least one week before to the last day of the quarter in which the internship is being performed.

  In the paper the student intern should discuss:The nature of the company he or she was working for, what the company does, the role of the publications department within the company. The paper should also cover the nature of the intern's activities (projects on which he or she was involved and include a discussion of the educational value of the internship. Questions that should be answered by the paper are what did you learn? How well did your training in the Technical Communication or Human Centered Design & Engineering Department prepare you for your internship responsibilities? and Did your experiences reveal to you your professional strengths or some weaknesses?

  The length of the paper is determined by the number of internship credits the student is registered for. A 3-credit internship requires a minimum 6-page paper; a 4-credit internship requires a minimum 8-page paper; and a 10-credit internship requires a minimum 20-page paper. Samples of the work you have performed as an intern should be appended to your paper.

• Students must contact, either in person or by phone, the internship adviser at least once every other week during the quarter to discuss the student's progress, problems, etc.
• The intern's supervisor (a representative of the company the intern is working for) must send a letter to the internship adviser certifying that the intern has met the internship requirements -- that the intern has put in the required number of hours and has satisfactorily performed his or her assigned duties. The internship adviser cannot award academic credit for the internship until that letter has been received.

When you sign the internship checklist and submit it to the internship advisor, you indicate that you have read and understand these responsibilities, as well as those outlined on the checklist itself.