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Teaching in Engineering Education

Innovative Pedagogies

Internship and Industrial Placement

Please cite as follows: Chan, CKY (2015). "Internship and Industrial Placement", Engineering Education Enhancement and Research Asia (E3R Asia).

Guidelines in Organizing an Internship or Industrial Placement

Different universities have different requirements for their students to complete the assessment procedure of an internship or a placement. However before completing the assessment, students must apply for the internship or placement.

General Guidelines for Teaching Staff:

  1. Teaching staff can provide academic advice or guidance for the student who wants to participate in an internship or a placement such as guidance on the procedure for applying an internship or a placement, discussion with students on how the internship or placement fits into the student’s academic plan, etc.  
  2. Teaching staff may take a supportive role to help students, such as writing the necessary reference letters or supporting letters for the student.
  3. If the teaching staff happens to be supervising the student intern, here are the followings that the teaching staff can do:
    1. Make regular on-site visit when possible to the student’s workplace by seeing and checking up on the student intern’s learning progress and experience. If not, maintain contact through email or phone regarding their progress.
    2. Complete one on-site visit together with the student and the employer. The visit could be held in early-to-mid-semester. The teaching staff should discuss and provide feedbacks about the student’s work performance up to the time being and make consultations with the student and the on-site supervisor (employer).
    3. The teaching staff will also need to coordinate with the career services office or with their academic department regarding any modifications or interruptions to the internship.
    4. Student evaluation and assessment procedure are determined by the teaching staff such as marking the student intern’s work in the internship or placement, setting up the requirements for assessment, evaluating students on-site, etc.  
    5. The teaching staff will also be the one giving the final grade for the student interns based on the assessment they have handed in and their overall performance (from the on-site visits made and through the comments received from the on-site supervisor).

References:

Different universities have different requirements for their students to complete the assessment procedure of an internship or a placement. However before completing the assessment, students must apply for the internship or placement.

General Guidelines for Students:

  1. The student must first find an internship or placement through their university’s career services office or through their department or faculty, depending on who organizes the internship or placement.
  2. After finding the internship or placement, students will need to fill in and submit an internship or a placement application form back to their faculty or department, or to their career services officer at the career services office before the closing date of the internship or placement.
  3. Along with the application form, they will need to submit the following items: an up-to-date resume, reference letters or supporting letters, academic transcripts of their results, and a cover letter stating the reason why they apply for the internship or placement.   
  4. Student’s need to take the responsibility of managing their time efficiently such as paying attention to when the deadline is for the application of the internship or placement as well as the deadline regarding when to hand in the assessment for evaluation upon the completion of the internship or placement.       


The guidelines stated above are general practices of what students and teachers need to do for the application of an internship or a placement and what they need to pay attention to.  However, depending on different universities’ practices the application of an internship or a placement may vary, for example:

  1. Students will need to submit an agreement form, which lists out the responsibilities of the university, employer, and students and they are to sign to confirm that they understand the stated terms.
  2. From the employer, they will need to give an internship description form, stating the job details.
  3. In addition, the employer needs to provide an Internship Attendance Sheet (for tallying up the hours, which is signed by the site supervisor).

References: