Internship for BA in Design students

You can include an internship in the personal study plan for your bachelor’s degree as an elective (2-10 ECTS). Adding an internship to the degree gives you an opportunity to apply what you have learnt and acquire new skills and knowledge in a professional environment. It also provides you an opportunity familiarize yourself with work life and the professional realities of designers during your studies; helping you explore employment opportunities upon graduation and establish connections for the future.

As an elective course (MUO.harj Training), an internship period can only be included once for your Bachelor’s degree and is typically scheduled no earlier than after the end of the second year of study. The internship period is graded pass/fail with the number of credits awarded pending on its duration, what type of tasks and activities that you engage with and the quality of the report that you deliver about the internship period. When applying to include an internship as an elective, please note that the final decision sits with your academic advisor together with the programme directors and there is no guarantee that your request is approved. In applying for credits please also remember that work and studies are organized differently, and that work hours do not directly equate with study hours. As a broad rule of thumb, ten credits are associated with a more extensive and in-depth learning experience which at minimum includes at least three months of full-time work.

To include an internship in your degree, you should first obtain a preliminary approval to include the internship in your personal study plan from your academic advisor prior to the internship begins. Applying for including an internship is done by addressing an email to your academic advisor. In contacting the academic advisor, the internship should be described in terms of:

• the company or organization where the internship will take place,
• the name and title of the intended instructor of the internship,
• the length of the internship period and how many hours of work that will be done each week,
• the intended tasks and activities included in the internship, and
• what the student expects to learn from the internship.

The final approval, grade and decision on the number of credits awarded for the internship is based on the work certificate, worklog and report that you deliver after the internship period. The work certificate should be issued by the company or organization where the internship took place and include information about the duration and work conditions for the internship as well as a description about the type of work that you engaged with during the internship period. As a foundation for understanding what was gained through the internship, the worklog should be structured according to the type of work that you engaged with but should, at minimum, include of what you did each day and how many hours that were allocated to different of tasks and activities. Please structure your worklog in such a way that it provides overview, is easy to follow and accurately captures your day-to-day experience during the internship period. For overview, tasks and activities should be grouped in broader categories when possible. If you are uncertain about how to structure the worklog, schedule a meeting with your academic advisor during the early stages of your internship to get advice.

The internship report should describe the workplace for the internship and what you did during the internship period as well as include in-depth reflections about what you learned personally and in relation to the learning objectives set for the programme (and what you have engaged with in other courses at Aalto University). It should also include examples of the type of work that you did during the internship period, suggestions for how internship tasks and activities could have been organized differently and a statement about how the internship relates to future career prospects.

The format for the report is open but typically includes no less than seven pages of text, excluding front page, content list, appendices, figure, tables, etc. The report should be written in English and follow the conventions for an academic essay. For reference, you can structure the report according to the following template. If the internship has been coordinated by the Career Services (e.g. Foreign Degree Student’s Internship Support Programme for Internships in Finland or internship grants for internships abroad), the report needs also to fulfil the requirements of the Career Services (read more from Career Design Lab webpage). However, in this case, please make sure that the report fulfills both address the topic required by the Career Services and the topics listed above.

The worklog and report should be delivered to the person that initially approved your internship period within three months after the internship has ended together with the work certificate and contact information to the instructor for the internship and/or other relevant person who can provide details about what you did during the internship period. Please make sure that the person to contact is informed that your advisor will reach out to them to discuss the scope of your internship period.