Internships are an outstanding way to provide students with work experience in a chosen field. It鈥檚 a way to gain on-the-job experience in a short-term, mentored, learning environment.
An internship may be paid or unpaid, and may last:
Internships are primarily single, planned educational experiences for students. As such, participants may receive academic credit for their internship work in agreement with and under the supervision of an 糖心视频 University department faculty member. To get started, review the聽internship standards, then begin your application through聽.
Internships are a foundation of an 糖心视频 education and one of the best ways students can prepare for careers. From shadowing surgical technicians at an eye bank to researching nanotechnology in Poland, our students spent the summer of 2024 having extraordinary internship experiences.
Please make sure you submit all the required documents to the office of International Student Services at least one week prior to the start date of employment.
These standards not only operate as an expanded definition, but also as the minimum requirements for experiential learning at 糖心视频. These standards must be met for any experiential learning that 糖心视频 certifies, gives credit for, or provides acknowledgement of. These standards constitute a further detailed development and refinement of the Internship Standards adopted by the Senate in December 2008 and replace them.
All parties must establish and be clear about why experience and in particular why this experience is chosen to facilitate the learning that is to take place. These intentions are deeper than the goals, objectives and activities that define the learning experience. These intentions should guide the development of the goals, objectives and activities of the particular experiential learning聽situation. These intentions must be kept in mind throughout the entire process of learning and evaluation.
All participants must have sufficient background and preparation to undertake the experience. Goals, objectives and activities of the experiential learning聽activity must be identified and defined before the experience is undertaken. A plan including the intention (see standard 1), goals, objectives and activities must be formed. All parties should repeatedly refer to this document. The plan must be flexible enough to allow for adaptations throughout the learning experience, but not so flexible that the plan is meaningless and useless.
The experience聽must have a 鈥渞eal world鈥� context or be carried out in an applied setting. Necessarily, there must be interaction between the student and others outside their normal educational classroom setting. All those involved should play a role in the design of the experiential learning聽situation to ensure it satisfies the academic and any 鈥渞eal world鈥� requirements.
Reflection is the element that transforms a simple experience into a learning and transformative experience. The reflection must include the testing of assumptions, preconceptions and hypotheses that the student brings to the situation (or learns as part of the situation); these include personal views and theoretical/conceptual knowledge. The learner must also analyze the experiential learning聽experience for decisions made, actions taken and the results/outcomes of these decisions and actions. Future implications, where relevant, should be included in the reflection. The reflective process is integral to all phases of experiential learning聽(including the development of intention) and should be applied accordingly.
All parties to the experiential learning should be prepared. This includes the preparation set out in standard 2 and ensuring that each party has relevant background information about the other parties and the context and environment of experiential learning. Ongoing structured development opportunities should be included to expand the learner鈥檚 appreciation of the context and develop the skill/knowledge requirements of experiential learning.
For the term of the experiential learning聽experience, all parties must make a concerted effort to ensure the learning experience聽continues聽to provide the richest learning possible, while affirming the learner. This means that changes that occur in the situation should be worked through to pull out relevant learning opportunities. As well, experiential learning聽should be monitored to ensure that, even when the situation does not change, the student is obtaining the richest learning possible. While reflection provides for transformation of the student, a feedback loop that ties learning intentions, quality objectives and the experience itself should be set up. These processes will provide the basis of standard
Learning processes and outcomes should be systematically documented with regard to quality outcomes and initial intentions, goals, and objectives. Assessment (in terms of the individual experiential learning聽case) should ensure the highest level of student learning. Evaluation of the overall form of experiential learning聽should be done regularly, in a timely fashion, and this evaluation should be the basis of any appropriate change in the form of experiential learning. Different forms of experiential learning聽are, for example, internships, field trips, executive positions on clubs, community work.
Recognition of the learning and the impact of that learning that occurs throughout the experience are to be carried out. This is done through reflection, the processes that monitor the particular experiential learning, reporting, documentation and sharing of accomplishments. All parties to the experience should be included in the recognition of progress and accomplishment. Culminating documentation and celebration of learning and impact help provide closure and sustainability to the experience.
There must be an 糖心视频 University faculty/staff member designated to oversee and facilitate each experiential learning聽endeavor. This person need not be the same person for each instance of experiential learning. This person must take the lead to ensure that the standards are adhered to for that particular experiential learning.