Students seeking an internship need to ensure they meet the following requirements before committing to an employer:
- At least junior class status (minimum of 60 credits completed) or two-year senior class status (minimum of 30 credits completed)
- Good academic standing. Students must have a 2.5 GPA at the time they begin the internship, and 3.0 recommended for 12-credit internship
- Availability of professional or general electives (not liberal arts electives) that can be replaced by the internship (3-, 6-, 9-, or 12-credit internship)
- Total semester credits not to exceed 18 credit hours, unless student is willing to pay additional tuition for extra credits
The following guidelines are in place for an internship to qualify for college credit:
- The internship needs to be a working experience within the student’s major.
- The job duties must provide the student with a rigorous, hands-on working experience that enables the student to apply academic learnings in a real, live work situation.
- The internship needs to be a new learning experience. College credit cannot be granted for an existing job.
- The internship must be supervised by a site mentor who is experienced and qualified to provide feedback and direction in that field of work.
The following are the internship course requirements:
- Complete 5 workshops chosen from an array of in person or remote workshop opportunities offered by the Professional and Career Development department and participate in a promotional event to inform other students about your experience and internship opportunities at your internship site.
- Completion of internship with the minimum of 150 hours for a 3-credit internship, 300 hours for a 6-credit internship, 450 hours for a 9-credit internship and 600 hours for a 12-credit internship
- Completion of weekly, two-page double-spaced, typed e-journal including three categories:
- Tasks/Activities/Duties performed that week
- Skills/Information learned that week
- Problems encountered and how they were solved that week
- Submission of one-page weekly log with name, days, dates and hours worked each week placed in the left-hand corner. This can be added to the top of the journal for convenience.
- Completion of a final oral presentation/demonstration that is open to the Thomas community and that incorporates the following:
A demonstration of outcomes related to the achievement of the intern’s five contracted learning objectives.