An internship in the Department of Business & Accounting allows students to supplement their formal education with practical experience. It focuses not only on performing well on the job for an employer, but also on creating an optimal learning experience. Completion of an internship may determine whether or not a student is even considered for a position. Students who declare a Business Administration major in the fall of 2001 or thereafter are required to take a 3-credit business internship. Students who declare an Accounting major in the fall of 2007 or thereafter are required to take a 3-credit accounting internship.
In order to receive credit for an internship, the student must apply for it. This includes:
As the most important person the student will contact during his/her internship, the on-site supervisor will make several important decisions during the experience. Consequently, both the intern and the internship coordinator must have a good working relationship with the supervisor.
The intern will assume both an employee and a student role simultaneously. As an employee, the intern must perform assigned duties satisfactorily. All company regulations, health and safety conditions and legal requirements apply; any company policy violations should be handled in the usual way. In other words, you become an employee of that organization and must follow all company policy that would apply to anyone working in the same functional area.
Also classified as a UW-Platteville student, the intern is subject to all applicable university regulations.
Though we have tried to minimize employer responsibilities, feedback to the student and to the internship coordinator is an integral part of the internship.
The supervisor will:
The internship coordinator will:
If questions or concerns arise, the supervisor is urged to communicate with the internship coordinator. Such contact is welcomed and appreciated.
The Department of Business & Accounting’s internship program gives students opportunities and requires them to fulfill responsibilities. They gain experience in their fields, apply skills acquired in college and make business contacts. Students are expected to seize opportunities to maximize the internship’s learning potential.
In addition, as envoys of their school, students must act professionally. This means always being punctual, performing work effectively and efficiently and behaving in a way that demonstrates ability and interest in the sponsoring company’s work. Students must realize that their performance reflects on the Department of Business & Accounting and on UW-Platteville and may affect internship opportunities for future students.
The student intern will:
The internship program requires cooperation among the student, internship coordinator and the employer. The student must approach this experience with maturity and a commitment to excellence, knowing his or her ethical responsibilities.
Food Marketing emphasis students are required to have their internship “count” in their emphasis area. On rare occasions, students in other emphasis areas may also request this. In order for an internship to “count in an emphasis area” it must have a high enough level of duties and responsibilities to substitute for or replace an elective course in that emphasis. The student should ask himself/herself, “Will I learn as much or more about ______ (food marketing, finance, marketing, management, HR, etc.) by doing this internship as I would if I took a 3-credit course in that emphasis?”
If the student intern thinks the answer is yes and wants to have the internship included within the selected emphasis, he/she will have to convince his/her academic adviser and secure that adviser’s authorization. See the internship coordinator for more details pertaining to this request. This option is not available to students who begin their business major in Fall 2007 or later unless the emphasis is Food Marketing.
These reports are expected to be well organized, well written and free of grammatical errors errors . For the required 3-credit internship, at least 30 pages of reports (usually eight reports of 3-4 pages each) are to be submitted to your internship coordinator on a periodic basis depending on the length of the internship. To remove any ambiguity about the length of the reports, a page is considered to consist of 300 words of text. Reports may be mailed, faxed or sent electronically approximately every week during summer internships or every two weeks during fall and spring semester internships.
Information contained in the reports should reflect the number of hours worked since the last report, the duties and responsibilities that were performed since the last report, what was learned from the experiences and what can be drawn from them in directing the intern into a specific career choice.
The student intern must complete an evaluation form that the internship coordinator will provide. On the form, the student should explain how the experiences enhanced his/her understanding of the sponsoring organization and relevant academic field. The student also should include suggested changes to assure a more effective internship for him/herself and/or future student interns. If no changes are needed, the student should so state.
When all reports are submitted, the employer’s evaluation of the intern’s performance has been sent to the internship coordinator and the student intern’s evaluation of the internship experience has reached the internship coordinator, then a grade (pass/fail) will be turned for the academic term during which the student interned.
Upon being hired for your internship (Congratulations!), the attached document—and the supplementary job description and narrative—must be completed and submitted to the internship coordinator for approval. At present Professor Robert Conway is serving as the coordinator.
Once a student’s internship has been approved, the student will be notified by the department’s administrative and directed to register for the internship course.
Professor Conway's contact information: