Internships, Field Experiences, and Practicums

Internships serve a number of purposes:

1. Enrich students' learning.  They do this by providing concrete experiences with applying knowledge outside an academic context. This enables the student to knit up their academic learning with relatively professional functioning.  They can try out principles they learned in the classroom, laboratory, and readings. The goal is that students will make firm connections between their academic learning and their professional activity, and that they draw on what they learned in the career setting to illustrate, dramatize, correct, and reorganize their academic learning.
2. Give students a realistic day-to-day experience with life in a profession they are possibly thinking about entering. They will have a chance to try it out with minimal cost to their careers before committing themselves to a job in the field.  
3. Introduce students into professional networks.  They may find a future job in their internship agency, in some other agency they contacted in the course of their internship, or the contacts they developed may help them find a job somewhere else.
4. Provide the basis of a competency evaluation.  Interns and UMN Morris can see whether they have acquired the knowledge and skills they are expected to acquire. 

This internship consists of professionally supervised activities in a career setting with related learning outcomes with an accompanying internship course. The kinds of activities that count toward an internship must teach the student something academically valuable about their major or minor. Interns observe, assist and engage with the professional activity that goes on around them under close supervision. Each internship entails two supervisors:

1. The UMN Morris faculty supervisor, who instructs the student on internship-specific requirements; additionally the faculty supervisor teaches the corresponding internship course and awards the grade.
2. At least one site supervisor, a qualified professional in the field setting of the internship who supervises the student's on-site activities and, at the completion of the internship activities, sends an evaluation of the student's performance to the faculty supervisor.

*All paperwork to register for this type of internship must be submitted on Handshake.

This internship also consists of professionally supervised activities in a career setting with related learning outcomes, and the activities that count toward an internship must teach the student something academically valuable about their major or minor. However, this internship does not have a faculty supervisor or a corresponding internship course, only a site supervisor and UMN Morris’s internship coordinator.

*All paperwork to participate in this type of internship must be submitted on Handshake.

There are two general ways to go about arranging an internship or field experience:

1. Use UMN Morris resources to locate a career setting; then work with faculty and staff to make the necessary arrangements. The Internship Coordinator maintains information on internship possibilities.
2. Make your own inquiries about the possibilities at a location in which you wish to work, and then enlist the help of a UMN Morris faculty member to set up a suitable set of course requirements for you.

Whichever path you take, be sure to allow plenty of time, generally about half a year, to make arrangements. This means, for instance, that if you wish to take your internship during the summer after your junior year, you should begin to make arrangements during the early part of the previous fall semester.
 

Student Instructions for Internship Site Agreement (in Handshake)

The Internship Site Agreement in Handshake is required for internships taken for academic credit at UMN Morris.

All students completing any internship while attending the University of Minnesota Morris are required to submit information about the internship experience through Handshake for approval by the internship site supervisor and the internship course instructor.

The following are instructions for using Handshake to submit your Internship Site Agreement through the “Submit and Experience” form. Depending on which department you are registering your internship through, this step may need to be completed before your enrollment in the internship course. If not required as a step for internship course registration, this agreement must be submitted in the first two weeks of the term.

Log in

Log into Handshake. You will need information such as your supervisor’s first and last name, email address, and a list of responsibilities to complete the Experience Form.

Once You Are Logged in

1. Once logged in, click on the “Career Center” on the left side menu. Then select “Experiences.” Next, click “Submit an Experience” in the upper right corner to begin entering information about your internship.
2. Select the experience template that applies to you:
   1. “UMM Internship Experience Agreement: Credit Bearing”
   2. “UMM Internship Experience Agreement “Credit Bearing (IS 3796 or IS 3996 ONLY)”
   3. “UMM Internship Experience Agreement: Non-credit Bearing”
3. Then select the “term” for which you wish to receive academic credit.
4. Provide information about the internship site. Some fields may auto-populate if your internship was posted in Handshake. Be sure to provide as much detail as possible about your role and responsibilities. It is a good idea to use the internship description provided to you by the organization to assist you.
5. Enter the contact name and email address for your internship site supervisor. Double-check to ensure you enter accurate information as errors in the email address will delay the approval process.
6. Enter the contact name and email for your internship course instructor along with the course number in which you intend to enroll (or already have enrolled).
7. If the experience is credit-bearing, be sure to fill in all learning objectives and goals. This information can be found with the faculty supervisor.
8. Click “Submit an Experience” to submit the internship. The information will first be sent to your internship site supervisor for approval. Once the information you submitted is approved by your site, the information will then be sent to your internship course instructor for approval. Last, all internship experiences submitted will also be sent to the internship coordinator for review at the college level.

Is My Internship Site Agreement Complete?

Your internship is not fully completed until you receive a second email indicating that your internship course instructor has approved your internship. If you have not received an email within two weeks of submitting your internship experience information, please contact your site supervisor and internship course instructor to inquire about the status of their review of your internship. You can also check the status of the approval process on Handshake.

What if My Internship Isn't Approved?

If an internship site supervisor, internship course supervisor, or internship coordinator does not approve your internship, they have been instructed to comment with any changes needed on the main page of your internship. When they comment, you should receive a notification in Handshake and email. In their comment, they should indicate what areas need to be updated. You can edit your experience information in Handshake and once changes are made, click “Update Experience” to notify your reviewers of the changes for approval.

Since it is hard to take an internship and a full academic course load at the same time if the career setting is located away from Morris, most students take their internships during the summer following their junior year or the summer following their senior year.  In the latter case, if the internship is the only requirement left between you and graduation, you can generally arrange to take part in the commencement exercises before completing the internship.  The actual degree will be awarded upon completion of all work.

However, part-time internships do exist here on campus and the greater Morris Community. Students can decide to participate in these types of internships and take academic classes at the same time. It all depends on the student’s needs and internship availability.

The University of Minnesota administrative policy stipulates that each credit of coursework equates to about three hours of academic effort per week in order to complete the work to achieve an average grade, totaling 45 hours per semester, not including exam week. One credit equals 45 hours of work over the course of the semester (1 credit x 3 hours of work x 15 weeks equals 45 hours of academic work).

To determine internship credits, estimate the educational hours involved and divide by 45 to determine the appropriate credit allocation. Alternatively, structure the internship to ensure it meets the required 180 hours hours for a four-credit equivalent, including times for daily logs, a final paper, and specific readings.

The specific requirements for your internship will depend on your faculty supervisor and on the kind of internship setting in which you will be working. However, most internships require the following:

1. A specific plan for site supervision
2. A daily log in which you record your main activities during that day and your thoughts about what you are doing
3. A paper about your internship
4. A satisfactory evaluation by your site supervisor

Note: You are not necessarily required to do new reading or to engage in research.  If you have not already acquired the necessary background for your internship setting, you may be required to read background material. You are always encouraged to read, but a schedule of reading is not a standard part of the internship experience. The point of an internship is to gain experience by doing, not by reading. Nevertheless, credit is awarded for the intellectual and academic benefits that accrue to the student. Consequently, intellectual reflection on the activity is a core value of the internship. The doing of the work carries its own rewards. The reflection on the activity demonstrates the academic impact.

You are also welcome to conduct research in your internship setting, provided you have the consent of the authorities at your internship setting.

All internships are graded on the S-N system only.  To obtain a grade of S, all aspects of your work must be satisfactory—your daily log, your paper, and your site supervisor's evaluation of your work. Doing well on one or more of these measures will not compensate for the failure of another.