internship

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GUIDELINES FOR INTERNSHIP STUDENTS

UNITED BUSINESS INSTITUTES – 2016-2017

Module Title Internship Credit 10 Module Leader The BA Dean or his replacement Programme Year BA – Year 1 - 3 (Academic Year 2016 - 2017) The Internship at UBI UBI students are required to do an internship every year as part of their programme of study. UBI has great expectations regarding the internships and consider them as one of the main educational assets it has to offer. The students have to do an internship of a minimum duration of one month (four weeks full time) in a business company of their choice. The internship can take place either in January or during the summer. They cannot do an internship twice in the same company (unless the Dean allows it). The trainee is required to work in an area very closely related to his/her studies. The choice of the specific area remains the responsibility of the student in an attempt to suit his/her experience needs. The general areas are management, finance, accounting, marketing, logistics, business law, business computing, e-commerce, communications, logistics, production, economics, and others. The specific areas will be any of those that fall within the general business areas. Induction At the beginning of each term, the students are invited to an information session about the internships. For the new students attendance at this session is mandatory. Two main things will happen at the information session:

1. The students will receive all the necessary documentation about the internships (module descriptor, guidelines for students, guidelines for supervisors, forms) along with the Academic Rules and Regulations.

2. The BA Dean will explain what the students are expected to do in terms of internships, and answer all the questions on the subject.

The students will be instructed in Business English how to write a CV and an application letter, how to write a report, how to properly reference and how to use TURNITIN. The latter is also covered in InfoSys1.

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Application The student is required to work in an area very closely related to his/her studies. The choice of the specific area remains the responsibility of the student in an attempt to suit his/her experience needs. The general areas are management, finance, accounting, marketing, logistics, business law, business computing, e-commerce, communications, logistics, production, economics, and others. The specific areas will be any of those that fall within the general business areas. The Supervisor of the trainee must be a manager of the company or someone appointed by a manager to do the supervision job. The Supervisor must be present at the company most of the time during the trainee’s stay. He must be available to dedicate enough time to the supervision and must be competent to assess the trainee’s performance. He must be the person giving the trainee his/her instructions for the internship and evaluating the trainee at the end of the internship. The Supervisor cannot be a friend or a relative of the trainee. There can be no business relationship between them. The student will apply to companies without any further support from UBI. He will have to take all the application steps on his/her own. However, exceptionally, UBI may help a student find an internship if it turns out that the student is in a difficult position to apply. UBI does not provide the students with a list of internship offers but anytime UBI receives internship offers it will transmit them to the students. Moreover, the students can turn to organizations as AIESEC and the Fulbright Commission, with which UBI has regular contacts. Approval Once a student has found an internship that meets UBI criteria, he/she will fill in the “Internship Detail Form” (see appendices) and submit it to the BA Dean for approval. Without the Dean’s approval the student is not authorized to start his/her internship. In that form the Supervisor’s details are mentioned (with name, position in the company, email address and phone number) so that UBI can contact him/her during the internship. It is essential that such a contact can take place. The “Internship Detail Form” must also mention the company details (name and coordinates of company, location of the internship), the duration of the internship and the job to be performed.

 Aims The internship provides an opportunity for the student to apply the knowledge and skills learnt during the years of study. By working as an intern in an organization or a business company, the student has the chance to demonstrate to his/her immediate supervisor his/her ability to perform the assigned task and work with others under the prevailing conditions. Writing a report about his/her experience will reinforce the

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student’s ability to reflect on his/her experience. The report requires, by the third year, for the student to critically analyze an area of the business environment.

Learning outcomes Knowledge On completion of the internship, the successful student is expected to:

1. Show an understanding of business operations and actions taken by management.

2. Have increased his/her knowledge of the specific field he/she worked in. 3. Have developed his/her criticism on the sector and the company he/she

worked in.

Skills On completion of the internship, the successful student will be able to:

4. Demonstrate his/her ability to work in an organizational environment. 5. Show appreciation of working in a team. 6. Demonstrate a practical implementation of the theoretical skills acquired.

Expectations per Year

7. BA 1: Demonstrate an ability to write a comprehensive report giving a ‘business’ summary of their experience in the organization for which they worked (in a formal report format).

8. BA 2: Above and beyond that which is expected in the previous year, it is also expected that the student not only understand the company but particularly the department for which they work. They are expected to contextualize their department and understand the importance of it in the organization.

9. BA 3 – Above and beyond that which is expected in the previous two years, it is also expected that the student apply their theoretical skills acquired to have critically analyzed and evaluated that which they have observed. They are expected to demonstrate, in a formal report, an analysis that demonstrates further research and a wider understanding of how best practices could be / should be implemented in the organization they worked at.

Expectations per Year BA 1: Students are not expected to be in a position of high responsibility. A goal of the internship is to help them to develop networking skills, understand the working mentality (practices and goals), communicate effectively within a professional environment and generally help them better define which area of business they are most attracted to. BA 2: Students are expected to have a better idea how to get an internship and in which area they would like to get one. The department they work in this year is therefore more critical and the student is expected to pay closer attention to the workings of the organization and how it interacts specifically with the department they have chosen.

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BA3: In this final year, students are expected to be responsible for a specific aspect of the business they will be part of for the duration of the internship. They will be able to build on the foundation previously acquired, and contribute with measurable significance. The report should reflect their ability to gain access and ask pertinent questions. The students are expected use this ability to critically analyze an area of the business they are working in. They must use their theoretical knowledge to understand why particular activities take place and possibly if these could be bettered. The critical analysis, as written in the report, should reflect the students’ thirst for understanding and desire to implement ‘best practices.’ The specific tasks the students will be responsible for have to be defined by and agreed with the Supervisor beforehand, according to the nature and scope of activities of the company. Contact with UBI Once the student has found an internship, he/she will have to fill in a form called “Internship Detail Form” (see appendices). In that form the Supervisor’s details are mentioned (with name, position in the company, email address and phone number) so that UBI can contact him/her during the internship. It is essential that such a contact can take place. The “Internship Detail Form” must also mention the company details (name and coordinates of company, location of the internship), the duration of the internship and the job to be performed. Evaluation of the Internship The assessment of the internship rests on two main components, i.e. the report and the internship itself. The report is marked internally by the BA Dean or his replacement. The internship itself is marked by the trainee’s Supervisor in the company. Both apply marking templates. The student’s performance during the internship is evaluated by the Supervisor on a “Performance Evaluation Form” (the Supervisor’s marking template) provided by UBI (see appendices). This evaluation form must be signed by the Supervisor and affixed with the company’s official stamp. It should be placed in a closed envelope together with the professional card of the Supervisor. The evaluation becomes an integral part of the student’s official academic record. It will be taken into account for the assessment of the internship; without it, no grade will be allocated to the internship. The student must make sure that his/her Performance Evaluation Form has been properly sent by the supervisor to UBI in due time. The Performance Evaluation Form requests the Supervisor to assess the trainee’s performance in three levels (poor, fair, excellent). The Supervisor has to add comments to support his grading. Without comments the trainee’s performance will be downgraded.

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The Supervisor should evaluate the trainee in a professional way as if he/she were an applicant to the company being in a test period. By no means the Supervisor can be lenient towards the trainee because he/she is only a student. The fact that the trainee was accepted as an intern in the company means that he/she was considered as capable to perform the tasks and to bear the responsibilities related to the internship. The trainee should then be evaluated accordingly. Assessment Scheme The two assessed components are:

1. 70% for the report, Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 7, 8, 9. 2. 30% for the internship itself. Learning outcomes 1, 2, 3 and 4, 5, 6.

Only the internships that have been specifically approved by the BA Dean on the Internship Detail Form can be considered for marking. Without the Performance Evaluation Form the internship will be deemed as missing and the mark will be zero. The reports that are submitted late are penalized with a 20% decrease on the total internship mark. After a specified deadline, no report will be accepted and the internship will be failed. Reports that have not incorporated all of the requirements listed under the subtitle “The Report”, may be subject to a penalty of between 20% - 50%, depending on the extent to which the report did not meet the requirements. Reports that are found to be badly referenced may be rejected or downgraded. An overall failure (less than 40%) may lead the Examination Board to require either that the report must be improved and submitted again or that the student must do his/her internship again with a new report. In both cases, the maximum grade that can be obtained is 40%. The Internship Report The trainee has to write a report after his/her internship. He/she received precise instructions about how to write the report. The report may contain a lot of descriptive elements on the company and its business. It is therefore desirable that the Supervisor reads the report before it is submitted to UBI for grading. The report must be submitted to UBI by a specific deadline. The Supervisor is not allowed to delay the report’s submission. The report must be written and presented as a formal report style. The student must write and submit a thorough and consistent typewritten report which has to be prepared with care and clear focus/objective. All work must be properly cited and referenced in accordance to the UBI referencing Guide – The Harvard Method.

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The report must be minimally composed of the following parts: a) Title page: this shows the name of the student, the word count of the report, the

level of study (e.g. BA2), the name of the school, the title of the internship and the period of time during which the internship was performed. The layout and design of this page is left up to the student’s imagination.

b) Table of Contents: headings and page numbers c) Executive Summary d) Introduction e) A description of the application and search for the internship placement. f) The body of the text must include:

• A clear and well-defined job description, an analysis of the job and work performed, a detailed description of duties given, responsibilities agreed, and how they were achieved.

• A description of the company and the department where the internship was performed (further company information may be attached in the appendix if they are properly referred to in the report.)

• Learning outcomes • Knowledge and skills used

g) BA 2 & 3 – A full account of the department you worked in, how it interacts with other departments (dependencies / rivalries), etc.

h) BA 3 – A critical analysis (which could evaluate, compare and contrast, define, classify and analyze, elaborate on, etc…) of an area of the company which the student was involved with. Demonstrate, using theoretical knowledge acquired how things are done / could be done / aren’t done. Please see also the above description; if there are any uncertainties it is the student’s responsibility to ask before writing the report.

i) Conclusion j) References / Bibliography k) Appendix (if applicable) There is a minimum word count per year: BA1: 3000 words BA2: 4000 words BA3: 5000 words The word count does not include appendices and footnotes. The word count must be stipulated on the title page. The reports must be submitted in hard and soft copy to Emily at the completion of the internship and at the beginning of the new semester. The exact date of submission will be communicated to the students in due course. Reports submitted late will be penalized, unless mitigating circumstances previously agreed upon with the Dean. Learning Materials NA Total Notional Learning Hours: 100