Internships

You must have completed the following courses:

• English 1130 - Freshman Composition I
• English 1230- Freshman Composition II
• Speech
• Three credits of math
• Industrial Studies 1010 - Principles of Safety & Risk Management
• 15 additional credits of Industrial Studies courses. And of course, you need to apply and complete all the paperwork.

The responsibility for locating the internship position falls upon the student. The student may wish to consult with his/her Academic Advisor, college professors, and/or the Internship Coordinator prior to selecting the internship. Substantial resources available to students seeking an internship, include, but are not limited to:

1. The twice-annual Career & Professional Development Office Career Fair provides numerous contacts with employers
2. Campus recruitment visits by companies and potential employers
3. Membership in student organizations and clubs
4. Membership in professional associations
5. The UW-Platteville Career & Professional Development Office posts jobs/internships on Handshake
6. Job postings announced in classes and/or posted to 4th floor Pioneer Tower lobby bulletin boards
7. Previous or current employers
8. Fellow students returning from internships
9. Family and friends (However, self-employment or working for a family member is discouraged)

Seeking, applying for, and obtaining employment are professional skills students must learn. The student should not go about this blindly. The student should visit with his/her Academic Advisor in the year prior to when the internship will be taken. The Career & Professional Development Office also offers no-cost workshops on interviewing, writing resumes and job-seeking skills.

For obvious reasons it is not acceptable for a student to be supervised by a family member. Nor is it recommended that a student seek an internship in a business operated and/or owned his/her family. Likewise, the Department does not consider self-employment/starting one’s own business a valid internship experience.

The Department of Industrial Studies and the University are under no obligation to provide employment for the student. In fact, most students would not be happy if the Department assigned internships to each student

The intern must work 80 hours for each college credit hour to be earned. To earn three credits, the intern must work 240 hours or 6 weeks. Regardless of how many credits you are taking, you must work 12 weeks for summer internships and 15 weeks for fall & spring internships. Same applies to co-ops.

No, you must work for the entire duration of the semester. You must work 12 weeks for summer internships and 15 weeks for fall & spring internships. Same applies to co-ops. Working less than a semester is a blemish on the intern's professional résumé. Plus, the employer may be unhappy and may refuse to hire interns in the future. Employers want a return on their investment of training an intern.

No, you will need to submit written reports every week. You are preparing to be a management professional. Written communication is an important, daily part of your work. Now is the time to learn how to efficiently and effectively do written reports.

The answer is yes and no—it depends. You cannot increase the number of credits once the internship has begun, but until registration is finished, you can adjust your credits. In the event, your employer loses a contract and does not have enough work for you to do, you can get the number of internship credits reduced at any time. Since this is beyond your control, you cannot be held accountable for this loss of work.

You must take at least 3 credits to meet graduation requirements. You cannot have more than 8 credits of internship count toward your degree. Internship credits beyond 3 can be counted toward technical electives.

UW-Platteville requires a minimum of 120 credits to graduate and a minimum of 42 credits must be at the 3000-4000 level. Additional credits of internship meet both requirements.

It is not uncommon for the work situation to change; for example, you are transferred to a new work site. It is the intern’s responsibility to update the Internship Work Agreement form and resubmit via Canvas. It is critical that changes to the work situation are communicated immediately to the internship supervisor and/or internship coordinator.

The Internship Application and Checklist form needs to be submitted well before you start working at your internship job. Many times, the employer may not know the exact start date. This is not uncommon. When employer provides this information, immediately update the form and resubmit to Canvas.

The need for information on internship forms is logical, but some of it may seem redundant or unnecessary. However, this information is required by the department, the University and the Federal Government. For example, the hours worked each week is used by the US Department of Education for determining the financial aid that you qualify for. By providing ALL requested information, you will avoid any potential negative consequences, for example becoming illegible for student aid or the GI bill.

There are over 150 students interning every year, plus multiple faculty supervisors. In order to avoid confusion about contents of internship files, files must be identified in a logical manner. The required format for naming files is as follows: lastName_firstName_formName_versionNumber.PDF.

Use the underscore rather than space to separate various parts of the name. Here are sample file names: Lincoln_Abraham_Resume_v3.pdf or Ross_Betsy_WR5_v2.PDF. Every time you update or resubmit a file change the version number by one.

It is very simple with the use of version numbers:

• Make changes to the file
• Increase version number by one and save
• Resubmit to CANVAS Dropbox. CANVAS will save the new version along with previously submitted files

The internship supervisor will usually be assigned during the second week of June. Internship supervisors are assigned geographically to minimize the miles needed to be traveled. While Building Construction Management interns will be visited mostly by Building Construction Management instructors, Manufacturing Technology Management by Manufacturing Technology Management, etc., it is not unusual for the internship supervisor to be from a different emphasis area.

The end of the UW-Platteville semester usually occurs before you have completed your internship. When this happens, the internship coordinator submits an "I" grade. When you have completed and submitted all internship paperwork, the assigned internship supervisor does the final grading, submitting a "Change of Grade" form, converting the “I” to a letter grade.