Internships can form an important part of a student’s experience while in graduate school. This document provides a framework for such arrangements and specifies the conditions under which students may obtain academic credit for internships.
GSAS students may elect to engage in internships that they arrange on their own with organizations or businesses. GSAS students are encouraged to evaluate internships carefully and to consult the internship guidelines prepared by the Wasserman Center as they consider whether to pursue internship experiences. (Important Considerations Before Accepting a Job or Internship)
In some cases GSAS departments and programs may identify non‐credit internship experiences and make them known to graduate students. Programs and departments will typically not monitor student participation in non‐credit internship experiences, although some monitoring will take place when such internships are required components of specific GSAS programs.
In order to be eligible as a credit‐bearing activity, an internship must comply with the following guidelines. It must be closely related to a student’s academic program. There must be clearly defined learning objectives and goals. There must also be supervision: both onsite supervision by a person with education and training in a relevant field and supervision by a faculty member who agrees to serve as the instructor of record. The on‐site supervisor will provide the department or program with a written evaluation of the student’s effort, and the faculty member will be responsible for submitting a grade.
Academic credit for an internship is awarded through enrollment in one of two kinds of courses:
1) A department or program may offer an Internship course for enrollment on an individual basis by a student. As with Directed Readings or Directed Research courses, enrollment in an individual Internship course requires signature by a supervising faculty member and approval by the program’s DGS. Directed Readings or Directed Research designations should not be used to enroll students for internships for academic credit.
2) A department or program may propose and sponsor a course for credit that involves a significant internship component. Depending on the number of credits associated with the course, students may be required to attend class in addition to their internship experiences and engage in classroom and other academic exercises in addition to their internship experiences.
GSAS procedures for the awarding of academic credit for an internship include the following:
- An internship experience must be listed in Albert in one of the two ways described above and with the department or program’s numbering designation.
- An internship course may not be done in excess of a program’s required credit.
- A maximum of two internship courses may be taken for credit if an internship experience is not required in the academic program.
- A maximum of six credits in internship courses may be taken for academic credit toward a GSAS degree.
- An internship course may be graded with letter grades or as Pass/Fail. The grading scale must be specified and agreed upon at the time of the student’s registration in an internship course.
- Each internship experience connected with a course must include a learning agreement that outlines the mutually agreed‐upon description of the student’s activities in the internship, the duration and hours of the internship, and the site supervisor’s commitment to provide at least one written evaluation of the student’s effort to his/her program or department.
- Internship duties cannot exceed 20 hours per week during the Fall and Spring academic semesters. Full‐time internships are permitted during the summer semester.