Internships for Credit in H&S

All credit-bearing Internships require approval in advance. You must prepare and submit a learning contract before the semester or term in which the internship will take place. This online contract then goes to your faculty sponsor for review and approval. After the faculty sponsor approves the Contract, it is sent to the Dean’s office for final approval. Once these permissions are received, the registrar’s office registers you in the course. 

Faculty sponsors - please see our guide to the workflow process and the steps you need to take to complete your approval.

All students must meet the following qualifications to be registered:
•    you must be in good academic standing without warning for grades (warning for credits alone is acceptable)
•    you must not have any holds on your student account
•    you must have room in your schedules to permit the addition of the internship course.

Most departments set other eligibility criteria pertaining to the major or minor. Typically, H&S programs require students to have completed a substantial portion of a major or minor before they are eligible to register for an internship. This is one way that departments make sure that you are prepared to get the most out of these experiential learning opportunities. Please check with your department chair or faculty sponsor for specific details.

In most cases, it is permissible to receive credit in an internship course even if you are also being paid by the organization where you are interning. Exception: if you are being paid for a community-based internship with work study funds, you may not enroll in a credit-bearing internship.

There is a college limit of 12 credits total, in any combination of internship courses, that can be counted toward the 120 credits required for graduation. Some H&S programs also limit the number of credits that can be applied towards major or minor requirements. Finally, the number of credits you can earn in a semester depends on

• what the specific course allows (some departments have a semester maximum), AND
• how many hours you will be working at the internship site (for details, see below).

One credit requires 45 hours of student engagement. The majority of time spent for an internship course should be based on the hours/week you are spending at the internship site/working for the organization or company. You can also include time spent on the academic components of the course, including weekly meetings with your faculty sponsor, time spent on weekly journals or reports, and on a final reflection paper.

To determine the minimum number of credits you can register for, take the total number of hours you will spend from the start date of the internship to the end of the block or semester, and divide by 45.

Note that you may register for fewer credits than the total hours you will spend, but you cannot register for more credits than the total hours allow.

• If you begin on the first day of the block, the number of weeks you use to calculate the total is 7.
• If you begin on the first day of the semester, the number of weeks you use to calculate the total is 14 (weeks of classes) or 15 (including exam week).
• If you have a summer internship, calculate the number of weeks based on your start date in the internship and the last day of summer session. You may not include any days after the end of summer session in your calculation.
   

If you have not already completed this training, please complete this online course. When you are finished, you will receive an email confirmation of completion.
In the Learning Contract form, you are asked: “Have you previously completed the Harassment Prevention Training so that a copy is on file with the Dean's Office already?”

• If you have not already completed this training, answer “no.” Complete this online course. When you are finished, you will receive an email confirmation of completion. Upload a copy of this email directly into the Learning Contract in the space provided.
• If you have already completed this training for an H&S internship, you can answer “yes,” as we will already have a copy of your completion email on file from your previous Learning Contract submission.
• If you have already completed this training for another department on campus, please answer “no." We ask you to do this because the H&S dean’s office cannot access copies of the certificates that have been submitted to other departments; by answering "no," you will be able to upload a copy of your certificate here.
  >If you cannot locate the copy of your completion email, please reach out directly to Human Resources for assistance. 

Additional information regarding policies, Title IX, and training is available on the Sexual Harassment and Assault Response & Education (SHARE) web page for Student Affairs and Campus Life.

Yes! For these opportunities, the same process applies, including submitting a learning contract via the online form no later than the published deadline (for winter/summer session internship enrollment). Note that if you enroll in internship courses during the winter or summer sessions, you will be charged per-credit tuition, at the rate established by the Office of Extended Studies (607-274-3143).